On a sprawling former NATO base near the Dutch town of Zeist, two former Libyan intelligence officers go on trial today for the Lockerbie bombing.
More than 11 years ago, a jumbo jet was blown out of the sky, killing all 259 passengers and crew and 11 people on the ground.
The trial at the Dutch air base of two Libyan suspects, accused of bombing Pan Am flight 103 over the Scottish town of Lockerbie on December 21st, 1988, involves allegations of the largest mass murder in Scottish legal history. It is also the first time that a Scottish criminal court has sat abroad.
For years it appeared there would never be a criminal trial. Libya, against which UN sanctions were used, claimed it had no legal obligation to surrender the suspects; Britain and the United States argued that nothing short of a trial in either Scotland or the US was acceptable.
The stalemate was broken with a compromise: the Libyans would be tried in a neutral venue before a panel of Scottish judges under Scots criminal law and procedure.
Lord Ronald Sutherland is leading the three Scottish judges hearing the trial. There will be no jury.
While the world's media descended on the former army complex, the two figures at the centre of a legal milestone were observing their daily routine yesterday.
Mr Abdul Baset Ali al-Megrahi (48) and Mr Ali Amin Khalifa Fhimah (44), who have been watched over by around some 200 Scottish prison service officers for the past year, observed their religious practices and walked in an open-air courtyard where they are allowed to associate freely.
Yesterday they were reported to be watching Arabic channels carrying pre-trial reports.
Some 30 relatives of the victims of the Lockerbie bombing, most of them from the US, will be present for the trial opening today.
Under strict Scottish contempt of court rules, which every member of the media covering the trial in the Netherlands must observe, relatives are banned from giving their opinion on the proceedings.
As the final preparations were made, the spokesman for the British relatives, Mr Jim Swire, described today's trial as "just the beginning of the end".
About 1,100 prosecution witnesses and 119 defence witnesses are listed to appear in a trial expected to cost at least £100 million sterling. How many of these witnesses will actually be heard remains unclear.
Commenting on the unusual pre-trial feud between the defence and the prosecution, Prof Andrew Fulton of Glasgow University, told The Irish Times yesterday: "We can expect some very tense times ahead."
Reports of a weak prosecution case are exaggerated, he believes.
He said anything less than a murder conviction would feel like a defeat for the relatives.
"But the lesser conviction of conspiracy to blow up that jet would allow them to sue the Libyan government for huge amounts of compensation at a later stage," he added.