International researchers investigating the death of Chilean poet and Nobel laureate Pablo Neruda raised doubts as to whether he died of cancer 44 years ago as previously presumed, or of poison.
Researches are being made to identify whether the poet died of natural conditions, or he was poisoned by agents of General Augusto Pinochet's dictatorship after the country's 1973 military takeover.
Experts said more tests are needed to reach a final conclusion, according to Reuters.
Mario Carroza, the judge conducting the investigations involving 16 expert from Spain, France, Chile, the United States, and Canada said: “We cannot confirm that third parties effectively intervened, but we think there may be such a possibility.”
Neruda was a member of Chile's Communist Party and a friend to President Salvador Allende. He died in suspicious conditions 12 days after a coup d’état led by General Augusto Pinochet on September 11, 1973.
Ever since, Neruda's chauffeur, Manuel Araya, has claimed that the author received a suspicious injection shortly before his death.
After the coup and President Allende’s murder, and days before Neruda's death, Pinochet's soldiers came to the poet’s house and told him they are looking for weapons at his place.
"Poetry is my only weapon," he replied them.
Forty years after his death, an investigation was launched to reveal the truth behind this mysterious death. His body was exhumed for the first time in April 2013 for analysis, to be buried again for the fourth time in 2016, three years after its extraction to determine the exact cause behind his death.
