The poet and Nobel Literature Prize winner died in the Santa Maria clinic in this capital city on September 23, 1973, 12 days after Augusto Pinochet’s military coup against the Popular Unity government of President Salvador Allende and on the eve of a scheduled trip to Mexico.
Although the official version of the dictatorship (1973-1990) attributes the death of the intellectual to prostate cancer he was suffering from, in 2012 an investigation was initiated after the statements of his driver and assistant, Manuel Araya, about a possible poisoning.
Since then three groups of international experts analyzed the case and the second of them revealed the presence of the bacterium clostridium botulinum, in a concentration incompatible with life, in the remains and in a molar of the poet.
“For us there is no doubt that there was intervention of third parties”, in an interview with Prensa Latina via WhatsApp the lawyer and nephew of the poet Rodolfo Reyes assured.
He affirmed that the criminal investigation of the case is advancing in a very forceful way.
“The science has spoken. A large amount of clostridium botulinum, Alaska E 43 bacteria, which is deadly to humans, was found in his remains. Science has already said so,” he recalled.
The lawyer added that the only thing missing now is the pronouncement of justice, because legal cases are won in court.
Questioned about the motives of an eventual assassination, he recalled that his uncle, after the death of President Allende and the singer-songwriter Víctor Jara, was the only one who could confront Pinochet at that time and the dictatorship was not going to leave him alive.
jrr/arm/arc/car
