2023-05-26 10:14:56
the family of The poet Pablo Neruda described this Thursday as “unfortunate” the statement by the Chilean Minister of Justice, Luis Cordero, on an expert report delivered three months ago in the legal case investigating the death of the Nobel Prize winner.
“The minister’s words are unfortunate and not very prudent because he does not know the cause and, being a member of the Government, he speaks on behalf of the Executive. It would have been more prudent if he had said that he did not know the detail and that the assessment corresponds to the court,” the lawyer for Neruda’s family, Elisabeth Flores, criticized EFE on Thursday.
In an interview with EFE this Wednesday in Madrid, Cordero assured that “there is no conclusive evidence on Neruda’s death” and described the latest expert report as “additional evidence” in the investigation.
International experts delivered on February 15 to the magistrate in charge of the case, Paola Plaza, their conclusions on the death of Neruda.
The content of the summary is reserved, but the poet’s family claims to have had access to it as plaintiffs in the case and maintains that the document would confirm that Neruda was poisoned with the bacterium “clostridium botulinum”, which was inoculated before his death.
Neruda died on September 23, 1973, one day before going into exile in Mexico and twelve days following the military coup that overthrew the socialist government of his friend Salvador Allende.
“What is striking is that Cordero, as a lawyer, knows well the effects of his expressions and his assessment as a Government. His statements misinform the international and national community and show ignorance of the cause and an empty gaze,” added Flores.
The lawyer explained that, although the Government of Chile acts as a plaintiff in the case, the Ministry of the Interior is the one who exercises that action and that, therefore, the head of Justice does not know the details of the summary.
“The Minister of Justice is not responsible for assessing the case. Minister Paola Plaza is independent of the Executive Branch and she will have to clarify this case, which has been under investigation for more than 12 years,” Rodolfo Reyes, lawyer and grandson of the poet, added to EFE.
Clostridium botulinum, responsible for botulism, is a bacillus that is generally found in soil and can cause serious problems with the nervous system and even death.
The bacterium was found in 2017 in a Neruda tooth by another panel of experts, who dismissed the version of the dictatorship and rejected that the cause of death was “cachexia” (extreme weakness) caused by advanced prostate cancer that had afflicted him since 1969.
The unknown remains how or who introduced the botulinum bacterium, which acts at the neuromuscular level and is also often found in poorly preserved canned foods, into his body.
The investigation is currently in the summary phase and there is no set deadline for Judge Paola to issue a sentence.
Flores assured that, if the ruling is unfavorable to the vision of the family, they will go to the Supreme Court of Chile and, “if necessary”, to the International Court of Human Rights.
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