By Le Figaro with AFP
Published on 02/16/2023 at 23:58
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The Chilean poet Pablo Neruda. STF / AFP
Two members of the panel of experts investigating the mysterious death of Chilean poet Pablo Neruda told AFP on Thursday February 16 they could not determine whether or not the 1973 Nobel Prize winner’s death was due to poisoning.
The bacterium Clostridium botulinum “was present at the time of his death, but we still don’t know why. We just know it shouldn’t be there,” said Hendrik and Debi Poinar of Canada’s McMaster University. Both are part of the international panel of experts that has been investigating the possible poisoning of the Chilean poet, the conclusions of which were presented to Chilean Judge Paola Plaza in charge of the case on Wednesday. The latter indicated at a press conference on Wednesday that the report would be examined so that the court could decide, without specifying the length of this evaluation phase.
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Hendrik and Debi Poinar said they worked for four years on behalf of the Chilean judiciary to determine whether or not the poet had been poisoned. The poisoning theory has been debated in Chile for more than a decade. The two researchers said they were able to extract Pablo Neruda’s DNA from one of his molars, but due to its degradation they were only able to reconstruct a third of the genome of the bacterium Clostridium botulinum. According to this, however, it is possible to fully reconstruct it without renewed exhumation. “There is enough material for that with what we have in the lab. We just need the court’s approval,” he assured AFP.
An injection of germs or bacterial toxins?
Pablo Neruda died on September 23, 1973, twelve days after General Augusto Pinochet’s coup against Socialist President Salvador Allende, a great friend of the poet. In 2017, international experts unanimously rejected the military regime’s official version, which assured him that he had not died from a sudden worsening of his cancer. But they could not confirm or rule out the possibility of voluntary and intentional contamination through the injection of germs or bacterial toxins. According to this poisoning theory, Pablo Neruda would have succumbed to an injection given to him the day before he left for Mexico, where he planned to go into exile to lead the opposition to the Pinochet regime (1973-1990).
The international panel of experts analyzed the results of samples taken from the remains of the poet, whose body was exhumed in April 2013 from the crypt where it had rested since 1992 on Isla Negra, 120 kilometers west of the Chilean capital.