The First Chamber of the Court of Appeals of Santiago ordered reopening the investigation into the death of the Chilean poet Pablo Neruda, which occurred in 1973, twelve days after the coup d'état led by Augusto Pinochet. The investigations had been completed last September, after 13 years of active complaints about the case. Now, Justice has decided to take up the case to find out if the poet died of a cancer metastasis, as his death certificate suggests, or if he was poisoned.
First modification:
3 min
More than 50 years later, the cause of Pablo Neruda's death remains an enigma. The First Chamber of the Court of Appeals of Santiago decided, unanimously, to resume the investigation folder into the death of the Chilean poet, who died on September 23, 1973, just 12 days after Augusto Pinochet led a coup d'état against the Government of President Salvador Allende.
“As it appears from the background that the investigation has not been exhausted, there are precise procedures that could contribute to the clarification of the facts (…) the reopening of the summary is ordered,” the court held.
The case had been closed in September 2023, after the judge in charge of the case, Paola Plaza, concluded that all the necessary procedures regarding Neruda's 'official' cause of death, prostate cancer with metastasis, had been carried out without any finding that could substantially refute the official version imposed in his death certificate.
Plaza refused to reopen the case in December, following a request made by Neruda's relatives and members of the Chilean Communist Party, in which the poet was a member.
Now a panel of judges, made up of Elsa Barrientos, Jorge Gómez and Maritza Villadangos, concluded that “the investigation is not exhausted” and ordered seven more proceedings to be carried out to clarify the case.
“This decision is very important because it confirms our complaints and our background that, in the context in which the death occurred, there was intervention by the State terrorism apparatus of the civil-military dictatorship,” said Juan Andrés Lagos, spokesman for the Communist Party, for the EFE agency.
A new interrogation of a doctor from the dictatorship
Among the processes to be carried out after the most recent ruling by the Chilean Justice is a new expert opinion on the death certificate of the winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1971, in addition to an exhaustive analysis of the conclusions of the groups of experts from universities. of McMaster and Copenhagen, which revealed the presence of a bacteria in Neruda's body, which could have been the true cause of his death.
In 2017, both universities agreed on the presence of “clostridium botulinum” in the poet's tooth, also stating that, according to their scientific arguments, the substance “was in his body at the time of death”, which would indicate that the Chilean He was “poisoned,” according to his family.
“Since 2017, Neruda has been shouting that he has 'clostridium botulinum' in his body and that it came to him through the intervention of third parties,” said Elizabeth Flores, lawyer for Pablo Neruda's family.
Furthermore, the new judicial resolution indicates the need to summon to the bench Eduardo Arriagada Rehrena retired military doctor who was already criminally convicted in 2021 for the murder of Archivaldo Morales, broadcaster and communist militant, through the injection of a toxic substance that caused a heart attack.
Eduardo Arriagada Rehren He will be questioned “about his intelligence work based on Clostridium botulinum and will be exposed to the identical events for which he was convicted regarding the victim Archivaldo Morales Villanueva,” according to the court ruling.
After the case was initially opened in 2013, following statements by Neruda's former driver and secretary, Manuel Araya, where he stated that the poet had been murdered by members of the clinic where he died through an injection, the investigation into the death by Pablo Neruda is reactivated, bringing with it the foregrounding of the dark practices that occurred during the Chilean dictatorial era.
With EFE, Reuters and local media
#Chilean #Justice #orders #reopen #39Neruda #case39 #clarify #death