In an exclusive interview with Prensa Latina, Reyes affirmed that the expert opinion delivered to the Supreme Court ratifies the presence in the remains of the writer and politician of a large amount of the Clostridium botulinum bacterium, which is incompatible with the life of any human being.

The bacterium, whose name is Alaska E43 and is toxic, was injected into Neruda’s body and caused his death, Reyes stressed.

Neruda died at the Santa Maria clinic in this capital, 12 days after Augusto Pinochet’s military coup against the Popular Unity Government of President Salvador Allende, and one day before a scheduled trip to Mexico.

“The cause of his assassination is out in the open. After Allende’s death and the assassination of Victor Jara, the other national icon that was alive was Pablo Neruda,” Reyes stated.

He recalled that the poet had been a candidate for the presidency, a senator, an ambassador, a consul, a member of the Communist Party, so he was a well-known politician, as well as a writer.

President Luis Echeverria had offered Neruda a plane to travel to Mexico, but it was not convenient for the dictatorship for him to leave Chile alive because he had unified many people against Augusto Pinochet, Reyes said.

Asked by Prensa Latina about the coincidence of these revelations on the 50th anniversary of the coup d’état, Reyes noted that this investigation, which began 14 years ago, will show that Neruda did not die of cancer, nor because of his age, but due to a direct intervention of Pinochet’s agents.

“They took his life,” he said.

“For me, as a nephew, it is an agreement to be able to rightly say that Neruda was assassinated, but, on the other hand, I feel very sorry that this great man has suffered the pain caused by poisoning,” he concluded.

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