“Neruda was murdered,” he declared Rodolfo Reyeslawyer and nephew of the author of “Twenty love poems and a song of despair” to the media. According to the lawyer, the supposed crime was committed through the botulism bacteria injected into the body of the Chilean poet. Reyes also claims that the bacteria, found on his remains, was in the body at the time of death.
the nephew of Pablo Neruda assured that the international panel of experts that analyzed the bacterium Clostridium botulinum, found in the body of the writer in 2017, determined that its origin was endogenous. This conclusion of the experts, advanced by Reyes to the Spanish news agency Efe, would confirm the thesis of the complaint of the Chilean Communist Partyaccording to which the poet died of poisoning.
“This is what we were waiting for, because the 2017 panel had already found Clostridium botulinum. But it was not known if it was endogenous or exogenous. That is, if it was internal or external. And now it has been proven that it was endogenous and that it was injected or placed”, declared the relative. And he added: “I can say it because I know the reports. I say this, as a lawyer and nephew, with a lot of responsibility, because the judge can’t point it out yet, because she has to have all the information.”
The renowned award Nobel died on September 23, 1973 in the Santa María de Santiago clinic, 12 days after the coup led by Augusto Pinochet, who overthrew the president Salvador Allendewas buried in the black island. For 40 years, the official cause of his death was his metastatic prostate cancer. That until his ex-driver, Manuel Arayapointed out that he was poisoned, testimony that was the basis of the complaint before the courts that the Communist Party of Chile presented in recent times.
So far, Neruda’s nephew has only given details about the results of the expert tests carried out by the panel of international experts, but a full report will be delivered to the judge. Paola Plaza. The deadline has already been postponed twice so far this month.
On February 4, it had to be canceled because one of the experts, the Chilean biochemist Romilio Espejo, could not join because of the forest fires that affect the south of the country. The second delivery date had been set for two days later, on the 6th of the same month. That time the judge reported that the specialists did not reach a consensus.
According to the specialists in the case, the information provided by the experts is not binding for the judicial decision that the magistrate must take. However, as of March, Judge Plaza must evaluate the scientific evidence and judicially determine whether or not there was intervention by third parties. In this regard, rumors and unconfirmed sources, on the latest expertise, admit the fact of having been poisoned.
This is the third panel that is formed around the case of death Ricardo Eliécer Neftali Reyes Basoalto (real name of the writer). The first met in 2013 and confirmed that his death was due to metastasized prostate cancer that he had suffered from since 1969. The second group was the one that found the Clostridium botulinum bacterium in a molar of the poet. The last group of specialists is the one that has been dedicated since the end of January to determine if the origin of this substance was endogenous or exogenous.
This third panel is made up of scientists from Canada, Mexico, El Salvador, Denmark, the United Kingdom, the United States, Germany, Canada and Chile. In addition to two laboratories, one from Canada and the other from Denmark, which have carried out the tests in the case. The file has been investigated for more than 10 years and, for the year in which the poet died, 1973, his case is under the old Chilean justice system that, unlike the one that has been in force since 2005, still keeps his records under summary secrecy. files, as well as hundreds of cases of rape during the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet.
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