A man who had already served a prison sentence in Romania for murder has been jailed for life in the United Kingdom after carrying out an almost identical killing. Eugeniu Neamtu, 59, was sentenced at the Old Bailey in London to a minimum term of 27 years.
The case concerns the death of Neamtu’s flatmate, 63-year-old Gheorghe Trica, who was stabbed in the chest at their home in Walthamstow, in east London. The attack killed him, and Neamtu was charged with his murder.
What made the case especially striking was Neamtu’s history. Years earlier he had been convicted and imprisoned in Romania for fatally stabbing a housemate in the chest during a drunken argument over money, before being released from prison in 2023.
After that release, Neamtu moved to the United Kingdom, settling in Walthamstow. It was there, three years on, that he went on to kill again, in circumstances prosecutors described as strikingly similar to the earlier crime in Romania.
In both cases the pattern was the same: a drunken row with an associate over money that ended with a fatal stabbing to the chest. The parallels between the two killings, years apart and in two different countries, were central to how the case was presented in court.
Neamtu denied murder, but a jury found him guilty following a trial at the Old Bailey. With the conviction secured, the court moved to sentencing, handing down the life term with the lengthy minimum before he can be considered for release.
The outcome has drawn attention because a man already convicted of murder abroad was able to travel to Britain and reoffend in near-identical fashion. It raises questions about how convicted killers are tracked once they cross borders, a debate that the life sentence at the Old Bailey is likely to intensify.