Judge orders exhumation of 'poisoned' left poet
Tuesday 05 March 2013
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EmailA Chilean judge said today that there was enough evidence of wrongdoing to warrant a new post-mortem examination of the remains of Nobel laureate Pablo Neruda.
The body of the communist poet is to be exhumed after his former driver claimed he was poisoned by Augusto Pinochet's regime.
Mr Neruda was thought to have died of prostate cancer on September 23 1973.
But it has been claimed that Pinochet's agents used the disease as a cover - injecting poison into his stomach while he was in hospital.
The poet was a supporter of socialist President Salvador Allende, who was toppled in a military coup on September 11 1973.
He is buried in his coastal home of Isla Negra beside his third wife, Matilde Urrutia and will be dug up in a "respectful" operation in April, officials said.
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