Behaviour of arrested husband ‘peculiar’, says tenant

ATENANT of the Dublin-based man arrested on suspicion of murdering his wife after she went missing during a luxury cruise has spoken of his landlord’s ‘peculiar behaviour’ over the last two years.

Daniel Belling was arrested in Rome in the company of his two young children two weeks ago after his Chinese-born wife, Li Yinglei, had disappeared from an Italian cruise ship.

Mr Belling, a German citizen, never told the crew that his wife had gone missing and completed his holiday as if nothing was amiss. Now, Italian authorities suspect Mr Belling of murdering his wife – although he denies this and no body has been found.

Mr Belling, 46, owns two apartments in Dublin – one in Clarehall, where the family lived, and another which is rented out.

One of the tenants told the Irish Mail on Sunday that he would often wake up in the morning to discover that Mr Belling had let himself in during the night, without notice, before going to sleep on the couch or in one of the unoccupied rooms.

The Irishman said: ‘I remember distinctly on Friday night last year at 2.25 in the morning, Daniel let himself in here to sleep on the couch and on other occasions, if one of the rooms was vacant, he would let himself in.

‘We tried explaining to him that this wasn’t on.’

Mr Belling advertised a room in this Dublin apartment for rent on Daft.ie while on the cruise. The advert has since been taken down.