Police in Italy are investigating whether a body found in a suitcase in the Italian port of Rimini is that of a Dublin woman who went missing last month.
Officers were alerted after the blue case was found floating in the Adriatic port’s yacht marina.
According to local reports the case contained the dismembered body of an Asian woman in her mid-thirties. It had been stuffed into a bin bag and then into the locked suitcase.
Daniel Belling, 45, a German computer consultant, was arrested at Rome airport last month as he boarded a flight to Dublin with his sons, aged six and four. He was without his Chinese-born wife, Li Yinglei, 38, who had disappeared during their 11-day cruise.
She was last seen boarding the MSC Magnifica in Genoa on February 10 but there was no trace of her leaving the ship or being recorded by on-board security cameras.
The cruise company reported her missing at the end of the trip in the Italian town of Civitavecchia. It had stopped en route in Malta, Greece and Cyprus.
Police are reportedly examining the possibility that she may have been murdered and thrown overboard near the Greek port of Katakolon.
The body may have then drifted about 600 miles over a month.
Mr Belling told a judge that the couple had been together until the ship reached Katakolon and he believed that his wife had returned to their home in Dublin after an argument.
Ms Li’s mother, who has visited Mr Belling in prison in Rome, told an Italian TV show that the couple fought frequently but she did not believe that her son-in-law was a murderer. “He is a very good person. I don’t think he could hurt my daughter,” You Xiang Zhen said.
An autopsy is due to be carried out today.
Paolo Giovagnoli, the chief prosecutor in Rimini, told Il Secolo XIX newspaper: “We are in close contact with our colleagues from Rome to test this hypothesis. We should know a bit more in the next few hours.”
