It was an American based airline company with a US crew..the passengers were from 21 nations with the US losing the most citizens with 190 passengers dying. The first two guys caught and tried were tried in the Netherlands under Scottish law with one acquitted and the other guy getting life but doing less than ten years in jail before getting sick and gaining compassionate release in 2009.. he died in 2012. Families of the victims, mostly the US as we lost the most people in the crash, felt that the first two guys tried got off easy so when this third man, the man incidentally who built the bomb that blew up the plane, was caught, it was agreed by other countries involved to let the US take the lead in hopes that if found guilty, this guy would get a harsher sentence than the first two got.