Missing wife ‘had lots of rows’ with husband

Yinglei Li’s mother also claims she saw bruises on daughter’s wrists

THE mother of a Dublinbased woman who vanished during a cruise has alleged that her missing daughter argued frequently with her husband.

Yinglei Li’s mother You Xiangzhen also said, in a sworn statement given to prosecutors in Rome, that her daughter had visible bruises on her wrists after one row with her husband Daniel Belling.

Ms Li, who ran a wedding business in Dublin, disappeared two days into a Mediterranean cruise she had embarked on with Mr Belling and their two Irish children. Mr Belling is charged with her murder, but has denied he is responsible for her vanishing.

Ms Li’s mother, in a sworn statement to investigators acquired by Italy’s Chi L’Ha Visto, a missing persons TV programme, said the couple ‘often’ argued during the time she lived with them in Ireland. However, she said she didn’t suspect him of involvement in her daughter’s disappearance, adding that he was a ‘very good person’.

Mr Belling’s lawyer, speaking to Chi L’Ha Visto, said Ms Li’s mother has visited her son-in-law in Rome’s Regina Coeli prison.

Mr Belling had allegedly failed to tell the ship’s crew that his wife was not on board, a fact which aroused the suspicions of Italian police. He claims that she left the ship of her own will in Greece.

However, Ms Li’s mother has insisted that her daughter would ‘never’ have abandoned her children willingly.

Ms Xiangzhen lived with her daughter and her husband in Ireland for 15 months, leaving in September last year, she said in a statement to investigators acquired by Chi L’Ha Visto.

She said: ‘In all the time I was at her house she never left her children.’ She told investigators she could rule out that she was depressed or committed suicide. ‘I am certain that she would never have left her children,’ she said.

The couple ‘often’ argued when Ms Li’s mother lived with them, she said. ‘The arguments always happened at night when I was in my room; I could hear my daughter shouting,’ she said.

One particular argument came after Mr Belling took the children to Germany for ten days without warning, apart from with a text message, the mother said.

‘The next day I saw she had bruises on her wrists as if she has been violently restrained,’ she said. ‘I asked her what happened and she said that her husband had pulled her.’

After this Ms Li threw him out of his apartment, her mother said.

‘He did not oppose her decision,’ she added. ‘In the morning she let him in just to have breakfast, take the children to school and work in his studio. I thought she was going too far and said so but she told me not to interfere.’

Despite witnessing marital problems, Ms Li’s mother said she did not suspect her son-in-law. She said: ‘I have a very good relationship with Daniel. He is a very good person, I don’t think he could have hurt my daughter.’

She has visited Mr Belling in Rome’s Regina Coeli prison, Mr Belling’s lawyer said, leaving him the maximum daily allowance of money allowed to prisoners.

Ms Li’s mother told police that when she last spoke to her daughter on February 7, two days before the cruise, she seemed ‘very happy’. ‘We always speak on We Chat, a Chinese social media app, many times a day,’ she said.

However, she became worried when she messaged her daughter on February 10 and 11 and received no reply. This was ‘very strange’, she said. ‘My daughter has always responded to me.’

The couple were having problems as long as four years ago, Mr Belling’s colleague Hennig Duve told the TV programme, adding: ‘One time he called me in a panic, saying the situation is terrible and asked if he could come over.’

When Mr Belling explained the situation, it emerged the problems were mainly financial, he said, adding that ‘they didn’t have a lot of money but she always had big dreams about having her own company’.

Mr Belling, who is a German national, has been living and working in Dublin as an IT consultant.

The family’s cruise started in Civitavecchia and took them to Malta, Greece and Cyprus.

Summy Wong, of the Southside Chinese Residents Association, in Ireland, said Ms Li asked in a conversation on We Chat if others wanted to come on the cruise.

‘She wanted to get a special price,’ she told Chi L’Ha Visto.

When the Magnifica ship docked ten days after the cruise started, crew members realised Ms Li had not disembarked the ship. Mr Belling’s lawyer Luigi Conti told the programme Ms Li had said many times she wanted to leave him, adding: ‘He didn’t raise the alarm because within this family, this behaviour was normal.’

‘He is a very good person’ ‘He called me in a panic’