The fatal bacteria was present in the body of the Nobel Prize in literature at the time of its death, in the first days of the military dictatorship, ensure two laboratories. The author died of cancer, according to the official version.
by Flora Genne (Buenos Aires, correspondent)
September 23, 1973. Chile has just switched into the dictatorship, twelve days earlier, following a coup d’etat fomented by the army led by General Augusto Pinochet. Salvador Allende, the socialist president, democratically elected in 1970, committed suicide within the presidential palace, bombed by the army. On the radio, this other information sounds: the poet Pablo Neruda died, at the age of 69. The official cause? The prostate cancer from which he suffered ended up winning. But by learning the news, his family braids: “Immediately my mother said to me:” Your uncle was murdered! “” Recalls Rodolfo Reyes, 73 years old today, and nephew of the poet, Ricardo Eliécer Reyes Basoalto of his birth name.
follow years of fear, marked by the impossibility of openly formulating this suspicion, until the return of democracy in 1990. In 2011, an investigation was opened on the cause of the death of the Nobel Prize in literature. Twelve years later, she led to the analysis of scientific experts, unveiled by lawyers for the family of Pablo Neruda, Monday, February 14: from Clostridium botulinum, a bacteria behind a deadly toxin was found in The bone remains of Pablo Neruda.
According to lawyers for family members – including Rodolfo Reyes – this leaves no room for doubt: Pablo Neruda has been poisoned. The bacteria “was administered and circulated in its blood system. It is a biological weapon,” says Rodolfo Reyes. Nevertheless, two members of the panel of experts rank on the side of prudence. The Clostridium botulinum bacteria “was present at the time of her death but we still do not know why. We just know that she should not be there,” Hendrik and Debi Poinar said of the Canadian University McMaster at the France Agency -Presse.
deceased after an “injection in the belly”
In 2017, already, a group of experts had excluded death by “cancer cachexia”, namely a worsening of cancer, as stipulated on the death certificate. However, these experts had not been able to confirm or deny the theory of poisoning. This is notably carried by the former poet’s driver, Manuel Araya. Interviewed by Associated Press in February, he assured that Pablo Neruda died after “an injection in the belly” at the Santa Maria clinic where he was hospitalized in Santiago. A version obtained from a nurse, according to Manuel Araya.
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