Husband who murdered his wife, stuffed her in a suitcase and dumped her body in a river with their own DAUGHTER covering for him launches last-ditch appeal
- Ah Ping Ban killed his former partner Annabelle Chen back in July 2016 in WA
- Her half-naked body was found stuffed in a suitcase floating in Swan River
- Ban was sentenced to life in prison but launched another appeal to overturn it
A bankrupt businessman who murdered his ex-wife, stuffed her corpse into a suitcase and dumped it in a river has gone to the High Court for a final attempt at appealing his conviction.
Singaporean native Ah Ping Ban, 69, killed Annabelle Chen, 58, whose half-naked body was found by a pair of fishermen inside a suitcase floating in Perth's Swan River in July 2016.
Ban was convicted of her murder in September 2018, and was sentenced to life behind bars with a non-parole period of 20 years.
Their daughter Tiffany Yiting Wan was cleared of murder but convicted of being an accessory and was sentenced to four years and ten months in jail.
Singaporean native Ah Ping Ban (pictured left with his daughter), 69, killed Annabelle Chen, 58, whose half-naked body was found by a pair of fishermen inside a suitcase in 2016
Annabelle Chen (pictured) was beaten around the head and dumped in a suitcase in the Swan River in North Fremantle
Lawyers confirmed on Tuesday they lodged appeal papers in the High Court, The West Australian reported.
'I can confirm that an application for leave to appeal in relation to the matter has been filed in the High Court,' Ban's defence lawyer Mark Andrews said.
It comes after attempts to have the murder conviction overturned in the WA Court of Appeal failed last month.
Two fishermen found Ms Chen's body days after she was murdered but the identity of the body remained a mystery for two months until Wan reported her missing.
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Ms Chen was found in 2016, two days after she was killed in her Mosman Park home, southwest of Perth.
A post-mortem found her face had been struck 25 times with a blunt object, leaving her with a fractured skull.
Justice Joseph McGrath said the murder was 'a brutal attack', saying Ban had shown 'callous indifference' to the corpse of his ex-wife.
After killing her, he stuffed her body into a blue suitcase and transported it to Swan River, where he disposed of it.
Tiffany Wan (pictured, left) with her father Ah Ping Ban (right), who was convicted of murdering Annabelle Chen, Wan's mother
Divers scoured the scene after the body was recovered at Swan River (pictured) in North Fremantle
He filled the suitcase with ceramic tiles to ensure that it sunk. The court heard that his glasses fell off during the dumping and were later recovered by divers.
Covering for her father, Wan told police a false story about the last time she had seen her mother.
She said the last time she saw her mother alive was when she walked out of her home and got into a car that was driven away by an Asian-looking man.
But she stopped covering for her father in early 2018, when she was charged with murder alongside Ban.
WA Supreme Court heard she offered to plead guilty to being an accessory to the murder, but her offer was declined by the state.
The pair blamed each other, testifying in the WA Supreme Court that the other was responsible for the murder.
Ah Ping Ban and his daughter Tiffany Yiting Wan (pictured together) were jailed over the murder of Annabelle Chen
Ms Chen's body was found stuffed in a blue suitcase (pictured), floating in Fremantle's Swan River
In a tearful testimony, Wan claimed her father had beaten Ms Chen across the face with an iron paperweight in a heated argument over money.
While she denied she had any involvement in the killing, Wan did admit she had sent messages to her mother in the months after her death to distract police.
She said she covered for her father because she idolised and loved him.
In retaliation, Ban told the court that his daughter confided she had killed Ms Chen during a fight in her bedroom over her upcoming university graduation ceremony.
By the time Wan did graduate, her mother was already dead.
Wan walked free from a WA jail last November on parole after she served three years of her four-year and ten-month sentence.
Her parole conditions state she is not allowed to have any contact with her father or members of her mother's immediate family.
The glasses (pictured) belonged to Ban and were lost when he was dumping his wife's corpse
