They were two loyal Newcastle United fans on their way to a pre-season tour in New Zealand when their plane was shot out of the sky for no reason.
John Alder and Liam Sweeney were among 298 people who were executed by a missile launched at their Malaysian Airlines passenger flight MH17 from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, near the border between Russia and Ukraine in July 2014.
Investigators believe the plane was downed by Russian separatists using a Buk missile system, and after painstaking research Dutch prosecutors named four suspects who were tried in their absence – with no hope of being extradited – in Amsterdam.
