On this day in conspiracies

Father Thomas, a Capuchin friar living in Damascus, and his Muslim servant Ibrahim Amara disappear. Their fate is never reliably established. Within days, rumor in the city turns the disappearance into an accusation against the Jewish community, a tiny minority in Damascus.

Still unidentified, the woman is given a Catholic burial in an unmarked grave at Møllendal cemetery in Bergen, in a zinc coffin chosen to preserve her remains for possible future exhumation; sixteen police officers attend and photograph the service.

Tried separately, Misskelley is convicted of one count of first-degree murder and two counts of second-degree murder and sentenced to life plus 40 years. Because he recanted, he does not testify against the others, so his confession is not evidence at their trial.

Secretary of State Colin Powell presents the case to the UN Security Council, citing mobile biological weapons labs, aluminum tubes for uranium enrichment, and stockpiles of chemical agent. Several of the central claims rest on sources, including a defector codenamed Curveball, whose reliability had already been questioned inside the intelligence community.

Four days before she vanishes, Maura is involved in a minor single-car accident while driving her father's vehicle. Days of documented stress precede her disappearance, including an upsetting phone call taken during her campus job the night before, the content of which has never been established.

Pervez Musharraf dies in Dubai, having lived in self-imposed exile since 2016 and never having stood trial on the Bhutto charges. Appeals in the case continue in the Pakistani courts, and the question of who ordered the assassination remains formally unresolved.