Santiago de Chile (EFE).- International experts will reveal on Wednesday that the bacteria found in the remains of Chilean Nobel Prize winner Pablo Neruda “was in his body at the time of death”, which may show that he was “poisoned” twelve days later of the military coup of 1973, he advanced his family to EFE exclusively.
“We now know that ‘clostridium botulinum’ had no reason to have been in Neruda’s skeleton. What does this mean? That Neruda was assassinated, there was an intervention in 1973 by state agents,” said Rodolfo Reyes, the poet’s nephew.
The bacterium, responsible for botulism, was found in 2017 in a Neruda tooth by another panel of experts, who dismissed the version of the dictatorship and rejected that the cause of death was advanced prostate cancer that had afflicted him since 1969.
It remains to resolve unknowns in the Neruda case
Clostridium botulinum is a bacillus that is usually found in soil, but experts from McMaster University (Canada) and the University of Copenhagen concluded in a report to be presented this week that “it did not leak into the corpse of Neruda from inside or around his coffin”, but that he already had it before he died.
The unknown remains how and who introduced the botulinum toxin into the body of the author of “Twenty love poems and a song of despair.”
“Neruda’s fatal bullet was found, which he had in his body. Who shot it? That will be seen soon, but there is no doubt that Neruda was killed. Intervention directly from third parties”, emphasized Reyes.