Forensic experts have determined that Chilean poet Pablo Neruda was poisoned nearly 50 years ago, the relatives of the Nobel laureate said Monday.
What Neruda’s nephew Rodolfo Reyes has revealed is the latest development in one of the big debates in post-coup Chile. While Neruda’s cause of death is officially believed to be complications from prostate cancer, the poet’s driver insisted he was poisoned for decades.
There was no confirmation of Reyes’ remarks from forensic experts from Canada, Denmark and Chile, who are due to release a report on Neruda’s cause of death Wednesday.
The first was because one of the experts had an internet connection problem, and the second because the judge ruled that no agreement had yet been reached.
A few years ago, international forensic experts determined that the official cause of death was cachexia, a weakening of the body from a chronic disease, in this case cancer. However, he said at the time that the cause of Neruda’s death was unknown.
In an interview with The Associated Press, Reyes said forensic tests conducted at laboratories in Denmark and Canada showed “a large amount of Chloristridium botulinum that is incompatible with human life.” This powerful toxin causes paralysis of the nervous system and can be fatal.
Reyes first revealed the information to Spanish news agency EFE early Monday morning.
As an attorney in the trial surrounding his uncle’s death, Reyes said he had access to a forensic report conducted in 2017 after the same group of experts said there was evidence of toxins in the late poet’s bones and molars. ing.
Laboratory tests concluded that the poison was administered while the poet was alive, Reyes said.
The report is due to come out nearly 50 years after the poet and Communist Party member’s death and 12 years after a judicial inquiry began into whether he was poisoned, as alleged by his driver, Manuel Araya.
Earlier this month, Araya told the Associated Press that he believed the forensic results supported the claim that the poet died “from an injection in the stomach” in the clinic where he was hospitalized. Shintani said that it was the first time she had heard such a story from her nurse.
On September 11, 1973, after a coup d’état in Chile overthrew President Allende and General Pinochet took power, Neruda died in chaos at the age of 69, suffering from prostate cancer.
Neruda’s body was exhumed in 2013 to determine the cause of death, but tests found no poisons or drugs in the bones. His family and driver demanded further investigation.
In 2015, the Chilean government announced that it was “highly likely that a third party was involved” in Neruda’s death. Neruda was reburied last year in a favorite home overlooking the Pacific coast.
In 2017, an international team of scientists determined that Neruda did not die of cancer or malnutrition, denying his official cause of death, but not saying what caused him to die.
One of the experts, Aurelio Luna, said at the time, “The basic conclusion is that the death certificate showing the cause of death as cachexia is invalid.” “We cannot yet rule out or confirm whether Pablo Neruda died of natural causes or of violence.”
Neruda, who is known for his love poems, was a friend of Allende, but committed suicide instead of surrendering to the army in a coup led by Pinochet.
Neruda was traumatized by the military coup and the persecution and murder of his friends. He intended to go into exile as a leading voice against the dictatorship.
However, the day before his departure, he was taken by ambulance to a clinic in Santiago, Chile, where he was being treated for cancer. Neruda died of natural causes there on September 23, 1973.
But suspicions of the dictatorship’s involvement in his death persisted long after Chile’s democracy in 1990.
Former Mexican ambassador to Chile at the time of the bloody military coup, Gonzalo Martinez Corbara, twice told The Associated Press that he had seen Neruda the day before his death and weighed nearly 100 kilograms (220 pounds). ing. Martinez spoke to the AP over the phone in 2017, just days before his death.
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