Man Gets Life Sentence After Deadly Flatmate Argument Over £5

(Eugeniu Neamtu. Photo by BBC News)

A construction worker has been sentenced to life in prison for murdering his flatmate in London.

Eugeniu Neamtu, 59, was convicted of fatally stabbing Gheorghe Trica, 63, on February 20 in Walthamstow, east London.

A judge sentenced him on Friday to life imprisonment with a minimum of 27 years behind bars.

What makes this case particularly serious is that Neamtu had committed an almost identical murder 20 years earlier in Romania.

In 2007, he was jailed for 15 years for stabbing his housemate repeatedly in the chest during a drunken argument over money.

After his release from that sentence, he came to the UK in September 2023 as a visitor but failed to tell authorities about his criminal history or that he intended to work.

As a result, he was not legally in the country when he killed Trica.

The judge said Trica was killed over an exceptionally trivial matter the victim had simply asked to be repaid £5.

The circumstances of the two murders were remarkably similar, both involving a knife attack in a domestic setting during arguments about money.

The judge described Neamtu as a dangerous individual, noting that he killed another person within just three years of his release from prison.

The judge also highlighted that Neamtu showed no remorse for what he had done.

During the trial, prosecutors told jurors that an argument had broken out between Neamtu and Trica at the flat they shared with six other Romanians.