Champion cage fighter Adrian Preda, 36, was sentenced to nine years and six months in jail in Bucharest in February 2016 for attempted murder, blackmail and being a member of a criminal gang
A Romanian gangster who fled his country to avoid jail has been granted legal aid to fight extradition from the UK.
Champion cage fighter Adrian Preda, 36, was sentenced to nine years and six months in jail in Bucharest in February 2016 for attempted murder, blackmail and being a member of a criminal gang.
He was allowed to remain on bail while he appealed. In December last year, the Romanian Supreme Court upheld his convictions, while reducing the sentence, but he fled the country before giving himself up in the UK.
He is now free in London while he awaits an extradition hearing next month.
He is the latest in a stream of Romanian criminals exploiting a legal loophole to head to the UK before using human rights laws to prevent being sent back.
MPs last night condemned the ‘outrageous’ case and said Preda – who drives a £60,000 BMW X5 sports utility vehicle – was ‘taking the mickey’ out of taxpayers who have to cover court costs and his legal aid bills. The Romanian authorities are demanding he be sent back after issuing a European Arrest Warrant (EAW).
Preda’s gang, known as the Sportsmen, helped flood Europe with more than £2million worth of heroin, stole machine guns and pistols in a raid on a Romanian army base and was known to open fire on rivals in the streets.
The Mail tracked Preda down in Northolt, north west London, where he parked his 4 x 4 vehicle in a disabled bay for 30 minutes while sauntering around a parade of shops.
Appearing relaxed, he said being sent back to Romania would breach his human rights because prison conditions there are poor. He also claimed he is innocent of the attempted murder charge.
He said: ‘Everything is very bad in Romania. In the jails, there can be 18 men in a cell. The whole system is bad.’ Romanian court files on 29 mobsters said Preda was convicted of attempting to murder rival gangsters at a shopping centre in Bucharest. He and his friends were said to have attacked them with knives and swords.
He was also convicted of keeping a handgun found by police investigating his gang after his brother and other members raided a Romanian military base, stealing dozens of guns.
Preda was found guilty of threatening to order the murder of a man to whom he had given a high-interest loan, as well as fights related to a turf war with a rival gang called the Cats.
All the crimes he was convicted of took place between 2008 and 2013. The 29 gangsters named in the files – including one called the ‘Dossier of the Clans’ – were jailed for a total of 220 years.
Preda’s sentence was reduced to five years and six months in December at the Romanian Supreme Court. But he fled, having been allowed to remain on bail with permission to leave the country at a previous hearing.
Preda, pictured with his BMW, is now free in London while he awaits an extradition hearing next month
It remains unclear exactly when and how he entered the UK. When EU nationals arrive their passport details are checked against a ‘watch list’ of suspected terrorists and foreign criminals.
The system is supposed to flag up those considered high profile or who have committed very serious crimes. Preda handed himself in at Westminster Magistrates’ Court on January 9, when police arrested him under the EAW.
A hearing in February decided he could be bailed with an electronic tag and curfew, but he is still allowed out until midnight.
The father of three is a former fighter for Real Xtreme Fighting, a mixed martial arts organisation based in Romania that hosts cage fights across Europe. He has fought in London several times and became a champion in his division in March 2016.
He is now renting a semi-detached house in Northolt, where he lives with his partner.
Tim Loughton MP, who sits on the parliamentary home affairs select committee, said: ‘Most decent, law-abiding British citizens will be gobsmacked at how outrageous this case is. It reinforces why we need to take back control of our borders and take back control of common sense when it comes to justice.
‘How can it be that someone with a serious criminal record in Romania can be allowed to abscond, get through immigration channels and into the UK, only to then resist deportation back to the scene of his crimes and expect the UK taxpayer to pay the bill for his appeal procedures?’
He added: ‘This individual needs to be packed off as soon as possible without any more taxpayers’ money being lavished on him.
‘He’s completely taking the mickey out of the system. Claiming that it would be an infringement of his human rights to be sent to a Romanian jail because he would prefer what he perceives to be cushier British jails speaks volumes about how we treat criminals over here. Most people will find this breathtaking.’
Sir Christopher Chope, who sits on the same committee, said: ‘At a time when British citizens are being denied legal aid for all sorts of reasons but also for deserving cases, to then see a foreign national and convicted criminal being able to get access to legal aid and contest a European Arrest Warrant, it’s absolutely ridiculous.
‘It shows the EAW is not the panacea that its supporters pretend it is. It also shows that he should really have been stopped at the border. If all the pan-European information systems we are told are in place to protect us were actually effective, then why wasn’t he stopped?’
It is the latest example of a convicted Romanian criminal being given bail and allowed travel to Britain as a result of EU freedom of movement laws before making claims under the European Convention of Human Rights. In June last year, the High Court blocked the extradition of two Romanian criminals because the cells in their homeland’s semi-open prisons are too small.
Ionel-Remus Grecu had fled to Britain to avoid serving an 18-month sentence for burglary, while Cosmin-Ionut Bagarea, 39, got three years for growing cannabis.
They were facing jail in cells of two square metres in Romania. The European Court of Human Rights suggests prisoners should be ‘guaranteed’ at least three square metres of personal space.
Members of organised criminal gangs, villains who clone cash machine cards and other convicts have also done the same after being allowed to leave Romania.
In October a legal source told The Sun: ‘There are scores of criminals and suspects using the loophole. Courts in Romania allow it to happen.
‘Once given permission to fly to the UK, they know their lawyers will stop them being sent back.’
Official figures show more than 1,500 requests to the UK for extradition under the EAW were made by Romania in the 2015-16 financial year, the latest available.
The Home Office has no involvement in Preda’s extradition process because it is being dealt with via the EAW.
Preda is being represented by the law firm Coomber Rich, which declined to comment.
The Ministry of Justice said: ‘It is a principle of the UK justice system that anyone facing criminal proceedings, including extradition, can apply for legal aid. Decisions on whether to grant funding are entirely a matter for the independent Legal Aid Agency.’