How the Hijacked Pan Am Flight 103 Trial Temporarily Turned Part of the Netherlands Into Scotland

Sam Denby from Half as Interesting, in his distinctively manic manner, explains a unique situation in which the hijacked flight of Pan Am 103 from New York to London crashed into Lockerbie, Scotland, the legal site of the crime.

Ultimately, when it came to where the trial for the hijackers would be held, the United States decided to use Camp Zeist, a former US Airforce base in the Netherlands, to follow the laws of Scotland, a decision to which all countries involved agreed.

Okay, so, in December of 1988, Pan Am flight 103 from London to New York was tragically taken down by a terrorist bombing as it flew over the small town of Lockerbie, Scotland, killing the 259 people in the plane, and eleven more on the ground. Ultimately, this crime, which mostly killed Americans, led to a trial of two Libyans, which took place in the Netherlands, but actually in Scotland, or more specifically an area of the Netherlands that was temporarily made part of Scotland.