Exhumation of Pablo Neruda's remains on April 8

The remains of the Chilean poet, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, Pablo Neruda, will be exhumed on April 8, it was learned today from a source in the Chilean judiciary.

In February, a Chilean court ordered the exhumation as part of an investigation launched by the Chilean government in 2011 into allegations of possible poisoning of Neruda, who was 69 years old when he died.

Neruda, a prominent leftist and member of the Communist Party of Chile, died just 12 days after General Augusto Pinochet overthrew Socialist President Salvador Allende in a military coup.

The Chilean Communist Party also previously requested the exhumation of Pablo Neruda's remains due to speculation that he was poisoned.

Neruda's driver has repeatedly stated that on the day of the poet's death, he and Neruda's widow received a phone call from the hospital where the Nobel laureate was being treated for prostate cancer.

The driver said that Neruda then called them to "come quickly" because, he said, the doctor entered his room while he was sleeping and "gave him an injection."

Neruda died that day, September 23, 1973, in a hospital in Santa Maria.