Never mind Piper Alpha, or the Dunblane inquiry. The sheer logistical difficulties of staging the Lockerbie trial make this by far the sternest test that the Scottish criminal justice system has ever faced.  

An entire Scottish court, complete with prosecutors, defence team, judges and court staff, will have to be created on a patch of Dutch soil that, for the purposes of the trial, will become an extension of Scotland. A maximum security mini-prison will be built alongside to house the two accused after they have been extradited to Holland and handed over by the Dutch authorities. A prison governor and a number of prison officers will have to be shipped over to guard the two for up to a year - maybe two years if, as seems likely, the verdict is immediately appealed by the defence.  

The court building itself will have to be big enough to seat representatives from the families of all the 270 victims of the atrocity and provide reception and lounge areas where they can wait undisturbed. There must be separate seating and lounges for international observers and a hi-tech media suite for the world's press. Defence and prosecution witnesses will also need their own accommodation. If witnesses from outwith the UK give evidence by video link-up from their own countries, this will have to be agreed and co-ordinated.  

Hotel facilities will have to be built within the complex where everyone can live when they are not in court. Restaurants and bars will have to be created, where "alcoholic beverages (and) tobacco products ... purchased by the Scottish court and necessary for its official activities" will be on sale duty-free. Massive security will have to be put in place by the British armed forces, at the court and around the perimeter of the entire compound, to prevent the threat of terrorist attack.  

No-one yet knows where this huge facility will be, although apparently four sites are under discussion, none of them at the Hague. A Scottish Office source privately speculates that a complex the size of the Ajax football stadium - not apparently on the list of options - or a good-sized aircraft hangar may end up being required. One person alone will carry much of this enormous logistical burden.  

"The agreement between ourselves and the Dutch authorities provides for the appointment of a registrar who will be the person in charge of setting up the court, the court facility and the administration of the court facility," says a Scottish Office spokesman. "At the moment it is looking as though that will probably be someone from the Scottish Court Service. That would be sensible, as they are skilled in setting up courts in Scotland.  

"The physical logistics of shipping all these people off to a foreign country will be a nightmare for the court service. It is a phenomenal responsibility."  

All of which is rumoured to be making Mike Ewart, the chief executive of the Scottish Court Service, and his deputy, Ian Scott, very worried men indeed.  

"The chief executive and the deputy are the only candidates, unless they decide to bring someone in from outside, someone who has dealt with massive events," continues the spokesman.  

"There is no precedent for bringing someone in who isn't from within the law, but maybe that is the only avenue to go down, someone who regularly runs huge events in the private sector."  

Might the Scottish Office be interested in hearing from fixers such as the theatrical impresario Cameron Mackintosh? Mere speculation, snorts the Scottish Office. But the difficulties are real, and they are not just logistical, but legal. One person who has in the past been acutely conscious of the problems of Professor Robert Black's proposal for a Lockerbie trial in a third, neutral country, is the Lord Advocate, Lord Hardie - the man who has since performed a smart U-turn in announcing that he is content for such a trial to go ahead.  

Last December Lord Hardie wrote an article for the 16 January edition of the Scots Law Times, in which he rejected the scheme as "impractical" due to "insurmountable legal difficulties".  

He cited "the lack of any power to compel the attendance of witnesses in a foreign jurisdiction" - a problem that remains in force, as Scottish courts have no power to force the attendance of, for example, German nationals working at Frankfurt airport where the bomb is said to have been placed aboard the plane.  

Even if pressure was successfully applied through government channels to persuade overseas witnesses to give evidence, Lord Hardie warned that video-link testimony might not satisfy the trial judges as high enough quality to do justice to the two accused without prejudicing their case.  

He also painstakingly explained that trying the Libyans abroad without a jury was "a fundamental departure from one of the traditional safeguards of our system ; Trial by jury is a protection, not only for the accused but also takes cognisance of the fact that decisions as to guilt in serious matters should not be entrusted to the judgment of professional lawyers, however eminent, but should be entrusted to the judgment of ordinary people, with legal direction from a professional judge".  

Scottish law will have to be changed by an order in council to make it legally possible for the trial to go ahead without a jury. Lord Hardie himself will lead the prosecution team.  

He tells The Scotsman, in an exclusive interview, that the trial will not be prejudiced by the lack of a jury because the two accused have always opposed being tried by a Scottish jury.  

His change of heart was not due to political influence but sheer practicalities, he claims. "The thing that changed, really, was the decision of the Foreign Secretary that was intimated to me in January that there was no prospect of these two accused being produced for trial in Scotland. That was his considered view."  

Lord Hardie denies he was embarrassed by the article, which he says he had written before the Foreign Secretary spoke to him.  

"I don't regret writing the article. I think that our system is a just one and a fundamental part of our system of trial in this country is the jury. I stand by that statement.  

"But it is not practical to have that [to import a Scottish jury to the Hague for up to a year] and, bearing in mind that the accused don't want a jury, their trial is not prejudiced by their not having one.  

"It is not a precedent, it is a one-off situation in very special circumstances, where you have got mass murder, where the UN Security Council has been involved."  

If the two accused are convicted, and a prison sentence is passed, they will serve their time in Scotland. Two maximum security cells were built for them in Barlinnie Prison in Glasgow years ago, after warrants were first issued for their arrest. But Barlinnie is only a short-term prison and any conviction for the murder of 270 people is likely to incur a long sentence. The two would more likely be held in Peterhead, where the mass murderer Thomas McCullough is held in his own cell suite, or Shotts, where McCullough's partner in crime, Robert Mone, is incarcerated.