Neruda’s nephew says report reveals poisoning

SANTIAGO (AP) — The nephew of Chilean poet Pablo Neruda, Rodolfo Reyes, said on Monday that the forensic report into the cause of death of the Nobel Prize laureate in literature indicates that he was poisoned by botulinum bacteria in September 1973, a few hours after flying to exile in Mexico.

This finding would dismantle the official thesis that he died of metastatic prostate cancer.

The claim of Reyes, who in addition to being a nephew is an attorney in the court case of Neruda’s death, became known days before a group of forensic experts from Canada, Chile and the Denmark releases a report that will establish whether the poet was poisoned or died of cancer, which is the official explanation given in September 1973, 12 days after the military coup that overthrew the president Salvador Allende.

The results of the forensic expertise were going to be communicated at the beginning of February, but the appeal was suspended due to connection problems between the specialists.

Reyes, interviewed by The Associated Press, claimed on Monday that the forensic report carried out by laboratories in Canada and Denmark indicates that there is a presence in the remains of Neruda “of a large quantity of Clostridium botulinum, which is incompatible with human life”, information that the parent first confirmed to the Spanish news agency EFE.

Botulinum toxin is produced by bacteria that can cause nervous system problems and even death.

He clarified that as a lawyer in the court case, he had access to the results of tests carried out by laboratories in Canada and Denmark, which were carried out after the same forensic group indicated, in 2017, that other expertise already pointed to the presence of the toxin in the skeletal remains and in a molar of the poet.

Reyes said the lab reports confirmed that “there was no external contamination, that the Clostridium botulinum was endogenous”, i.e. internal, and that it would have been supplied to the poet “from his lifetime”.