Forensic experts confirmed that Neruda was poisoned in the hospital

One of the longest-running mysteries in modern Chilean history may have finally been solved after forensic experts determined that the Chilean Nobel Prize-winning poet Pablo Neruda died after being poisoned by a powerful toxin. This finding apparently confirmed decades of suspicion that the famous poet was murdered.

According to the official version, Neruda - who rose to fame as a young poet with the collection "Twenty Poems on Love and One Poem Without Hope" - died of prostate cancer and malnutrition on September 23, 1973, just 12 days after a military coup that overthrew the democratically elected socialist the government of his friend, the president Salvador Allende. But some, including Neruda's nephew, Rodolfo Reyes, they believed for a long time that he was killed because of his opposition to the then dictatorship August Pinochet.

Ten years ago, a Chilean court ordered the exhumation of the poet's remains after his former chauffeur Manuel Araja revealed that a distraught Neruda called him from the hospital in Santiago where he was being treated and told him that he had been injected in his stomach while he was sleeping. The poet died a few hours later. Samples of Neruda's remains were sent to forensic laboratories in four countries for analysis, and in 2015 the Chilean government said it was "highly likely that a third party" was responsible for his death. Two years later, a team of international scientists stated that they were "100 percent convinced" that the poet did not die of prostate cancer. Reyes said on Monday that scientific tests showed that the toxin Clostridium botulinum was present in his uncle's body when he died, suggesting that he was indeed "poisoned" after the coup. The results of the expert analysis should be published in a report soon.

"Now we know there was no reason for Clostridium botulinum to be in his bones," Reyes told Spanish news agency Efe. "What does that mean? It means that Neruda was killed by the intervention of state agents in 1973". The bacteria, which produces the neurotoxin that causes botulism, was discovered on one of Neruda's exhumed teeth in 2017. Reyes said analysis by experts from McMaster University in Canada and the University of Copenhagen showed that the bacteria did not find their way into Neruda's body from the coffin or the environment.

"We found the bullet that killed Neruda, and it was in his body," Reyes told Efe. "Who shot? We will soon find out, but there is no doubt that Neruda was killed by the direct intervention of a third party". a day before his scheduled departure, he was taken by ambulance to a hospital in the Chilean capital where he was being treated for cancer and other conditions, where he died on the evening of September 23, reportedly from prostate cancer first detected four years earlier.

However, the official version of events surrounding his death has often been questioned. Gonzalo Martinez Corbala, who was Mexico's ambassador to Chile at the time of the coup, told The Associated Press that he saw Neruda two days before his death and that the poet weighed nearly 100 kg, contradicting claims that he was fatally malnourished due to the effects of cancer. Last month, Araja told the AP that Neruda "wasn't left alone in the clinic, they wouldn't have killed him." The driver said that he and Neruda's wife, Matilda Urrutia, were at the villa to collect their bags for the trip to Mexico when the poet called and asked them to return to the hospital quickly. Neruda died later that day. After Neruda's death, Urutia claimed that her husband was increasingly disturbed when he learned of the early atrocities of the dictatorship and that the suffering caused by the coup led to his death.

The long investigation encountered numerous obstacles, from the non-cooperation of the clinic where the alleged injection was given to difficulties in financing foreign laboratory tests. In the years since Neruda's death, much of the focus has been on locating the mysterious "Dr. Price" who was apparently on duty at the clinic that night. However, there was no mention of the doctor in the records of the Chilean medical union, and it was eventually concluded that he was fabricated to delay the investigation. Although his friend did Gabriel Garcia Marquez described as "the greatest poet of the 20th century in any language", Neruda's reputation has been tarnished in recent years by details from his personal life.

Not only was the writer a self-confessed rapist, but he was also a man who abandoned his first wife and their daughter Malva Marina, who was born with a neurological disorder and died at the age of nine. In his posthumously published memoir, I Confess That I Lived, Neruda admitted to raping a Tamil woman who worked as his servant when he was sent to Ceylon as a young diplomat. After describing the rape, he wrote: "She was right to despise me."

The rape confession, which resurfaced nearly five years ago, prompted human rights activists to oppose an attempt to rename Santiago's airport in honor of the poet. Speaking at the time, the writer and activist for women's rights Isabel Allende she told The Guardian that Neruda's criminal and callous behavior did not devalue his work.

"I am appalled by some aspects of Neruda's life and personality," she said. "However, we cannot dismiss his writing. Very few people - especially powerful or influential people - behave with respect. Unfortunately, Neruda was a flawed person, as we all are, in one way or another."