Purpose. To support transperineal prostate biopsies in a closed-bore magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scanner, we developed a small profile MRI-compatible pneumatic needle placement robot that can angulate a needle insertion path into a large accessible target volume. We performed a preclinical evaluation of the robot’s targeting accuracy with angulated needle insertion in a 3 Tesla clinical MRI. Methods. Angulation of the needle insertion path is achieved by a four degrees-of-freedom (4-DOF) mechanism with two parallel triangular structures. The robot is integrated with navigation software that allows an operator to plan angulated needle insertion by selecting a target and an entry point. The targeting error was evaluated while the angle between the needle insertion path and the static magnetic field was between -5.7° and 5.7° horizontally and between -5.7° and 4.3° vertically in the MRI scanner after sterilizing and draping the device. Results. The needle placement robot successfully positioned the needle with angulated insertion as specified on the navigation software. The overall targeting error was 0.8 ± 0.5 mm along the horizontal axis and 0.8 ± 0.8 mm along the vertical axis. The two-dimensional root-mean-square targeting error on the axial slices as containing the targets was 1.4 mm. Conclusions. Our preclinical evaluation demonstrated that the MRI-compatible pneumatic needle placement robot with the 4-DOF parallel kinematic structure with the capability to angulate the needle insertion path provides sufficient targeting accuracy for clinical MRI-guided prostate interventions.