NOT GESTAPO CHIEF

Press, Volume CVII, Issue 31530, 18 November 1967, Page 13

NOT GESTAPO CHIEF

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter—Copyright) PANAMA CITY, Nov. 17.

An ageing, bewildered man, held by police in Panama City for four days, awaited release today after a declaration that he was not, after all, Hitler’s Gestapo chief, Heinrich Mueller.

The head of Panama’s secret police told reporters last night that “the man suspected of being Heinrich Mueller is in fact Francis Willard Keith” a gaunt, grey-haired pedlar who has apparently been in Panama since 1942 when Mueller was already at the height of his power in Germany.

Lieutenant-Colonel Hector Valdez, director of the Panamanian National Investigation Department, added that the time of Mr Keith’s release would be decided by the Justice Minister, Mr Jose Bazen. Colonel Valdez described

Mr Keith as “just a goofy old guy”—a fat cry from the once-feared Heinrich Mueller, wanted in West Germany for the murder of millions of Jews and Soviet prisoners of war. The main evidence that proved Mr Keith’s identity

I were an immigration registra- ; tion form bearing a left , thumbprint, and Mr Keith’s • own diary started in October, f 1940. The photograph shows the arrested man being t escorted by a Panaman- • ian security officer.