‘My missing wife could be held captive by a fiend like Fritzl...’
Murder accused husband’s claim
A MAN accused of murdering his missing wife on a cruise ship says she could be being held captive by a Josef Fritzl-type monster.
German national Daniel Belling, 49, who is living in Coolock, Dublin, is on trial in absentia in Italy – accused of murdering his missing wife Xing-li, 38, while they were on a Mediterranean cruise in February 2017.
This week marks the sixth anniversary of Xing-li’s disappearance from the MSC Magnifica. But now her husband says that even if she does turn up alive, he doesn’t want to live with her.
“It would be great, yeah, but only if you could live in two different locations. So not together in the same apartment because that would be too oppressive for me,” he told us in an exclusive interview.
He also told us that he believes it’s possible she is being held captive – citing infamous Austrian kidnappers Wolfgang Priklopil and Josef Fritzl as examples.
“Do you know the story of this crazy guy in Austria? I think his name was Priklopil. Josef Fritzl was another one. “It was crazy. It could have happened to her, something like that,” Mr Belling told us.
Mr Belling, who denies murdering his wife, also revealed that his relationship with her was strained before she vanished.
“I think the relationship would have been better if we had lived in two different locations,” he said. Asked if he’d like to get answers as to what happened to her and get her back, Mr Belling said: “Definitely I would really appreciate it if she would come back and then two separate locations where we live.” Mr Belling also claimed that she might have returned to China and is living there today. Asked if he misses his wife, Mr Belling responded by saying it was “complicated.”
“It’s complicated, yeah. She had two sides. I mean, everybody has.”
Nonetheless Mr Belling insists he will not travel to Italy to stand trial – and he will fight any potential extradition.
He also insisted that there is no evidence against him. But he said if he is found guilty he will challenge it in the European courts.
Last year, Mr Belling was spared a jail sentence when he appeared before Dublin’s Circuit Court and had pleaded guilty to one count of dishonestly inducing the Bank of Ireland to provide a mortgage loan of €112,500 on March 13, 2014.
On five other occasions, Belling used false documents on dates between July 1, 2013 and January 27, 2015 to attempt to apply for loans.