Ireland resident vows to fight Italian cruise ship murder conviction

Daniel Belling has vowed to fight his conviction for killing his wife – a day after an Italian court hit him with a 26 year jail term.

“It will be challenged,” German-born Irish resident Mr Belling told us – as his lawyer insisted there was simply not enough evidence to sustain the conviction against him.

Italian lawyer Luigi Conti told The Mirror that the verdict by the court of Assizes in Rome was the lowest rung of the country’s criminal legal system – and the case still had a long way to go.

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He said there were two more courts that would hear the case – and he told us he was confident they would acquit Mr Belling (52). Mr Belling, who steadfastly denies murdering his Chinese wife and mum of two young kids Xing-Li (38) on a cruise ship off the coast of Italy seven years ago, spoke exclusively to The Mirror after Thursday’s shock verdict by a Roman court on Thursday evening.

He said: “It will be challenged. The next round will take several more months, my lawyer said.” And when we pressed him if he wished to make any other comment, Mr Belling replied: “Sorry, no, I don’t want to talk about it.” Mr Conti has now told the Irish Mirror that he believes the higher courts in Italy will reverse Thursday’s conviction.

He said the process is likely to take several years. And when we asked him why he was so confident, he said he believed there was just not enough evidence to convict Mr Belling – who is a free man and is living in Ireland – of the crime.

Mr Belling is accused of voluntary homicide as well as the destruction of a body in relation to the disappearance of his wife in the sea off the Italian port of Civitavecchia in 2017.

The indictment by the state accuses Mr Belling of “causing the death of his wife , who was travelling with him and two young children and in order to achieve impunity for the crime just committed, he disposed of the corpse, hiding it or otherwise causing its destruction.”

Mr Belling has always maintained his innocence. And two years ago he told us: “I am not a killer.” But on Thursday, the Roman court Assizes accepted the prosecution’s allegation that he killed Xing-Li and hit him with a 26 year jail term. That is despite prosecutor Francesco Basentini asking for him to be locked up for 24 years,

Mr Basentini told Thursday’s court case – in which Mr Belling was tried in absentia as he refused to travel to Italy from Ireland for the trial – that the state alleged the accused killed his wife before throwing her overboard into the Mediterranean Sea.

He claimed the evidence pointed to Mr Belling disposing of her body by placing it in a trolley that vanished from the ship – and throwing it overboard. He also told the court that there was no way Xing-Li would just abandon her two young kids.

He said: “Why would a loving mother like the victim not have taken her kids with her if she was leaving? Why would she have left her mobile phone, her id card, her residency permit and even her clothes on board the ship? That is illogical.”

Mr Basentini also said the theory of suicide did not make sense as she left no note for her two young kids. “The only explanation left in the field, the most logical, seemed to be that of femicide,” he told the court. The judges in the court of assizes who convicted Mr Belling will give their reasoning in three months’ time.

Mr Belling has in the past stated he believed his wife fled the cruise ship and went to China – but speaking to us in 2022 he said he now believes she is dead. “No, I don’t think so,” Mr Belling responded when asked if he believed his wife was still alive.

“She would not have left the children like this. Why would she not come back? It doesn’t make any sense,” he said.
Mr Belling, Ms Xing and their two children boarded cruise ship MSC Magnifica in the Italian port of Civitavecchia on February 9, 2017 – but later crew members noticed that she was missing when they did a head count.

Mr Belling, who spent 14 months on remand in an Italian prison before he was released and returned to Ireland in 2018, told us he believes his wife could have been killed because she had information someone didn’t want out. “I think (someone) may have killed her. Maybe she knew something.

“I don’t know, she just said on the cruise ‘I will be back, I need to do some business. She had said that to me earlier before too so I was just like ok. “That was the day before,” he said.

But later in our conversation Mr Belling suggested his wife had psychological issues – and this could have played a part. “I think she was depressive in her anger management issues so I think it’s something psychological also,” he said.

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