Was Pablo Neruda murdered by Gen. Augusto Pinochet’s Secret Service?

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Chile poet Pablo Neruda did not die of cancer, experts say – Independent.ie – The forensic experts, however, did not reveal the poet and Communist Party politician’s cause of death or end the debate over whether he was murdered by agents of General Augusto Pinochet’s dictatorship shortly after the country’s 1973 military takeover.

Panel members said they will continue to identify pathogenic bacteria that might have caused Neruda’s death to determine if a third party was involved.

The poet, who was 69 years old and suffering from prostate cancer, died in Chile’s post-coup chaos. The official version was that he died of cachexia, or weakness and wasting of the body due to chronic illness – in this case cancer.

“The fundamental conclusions are the invalidity of the death certificate when it comes to cachexia as a cause of death,” said Aurelio Luna, one of the panel’s experts. “We still can’t exclude nor affirm the natural or violent cause of Pablo Neruda’s death.”

Neruda’s body was exhumed in 2013 to determine the cause of his death but those tests showed no toxic agents or poisons in his bone. His family and driver demanded further investigation.