Experts began to uncover the tomb of Nobel laureate Pablo Neruda on Sunday to determine whether the outspoken poet was poisoned decades ago.

The Chilean poet died in September 1973, just days after a military coup ousted democratically elected president Salvador Allende. He supposedly died of prostate cancer, but his driver and others suspect he may have been murdered.

A court-ordered forensic investigation was scheduled to start on Monday. On Sunday, forensic experts began clearing the earth from his grave, located at his former home, which is now a museum, on Isla Negra, 106 km west of Santiago.

Some of his family members and the Neruda Foundation accepted the official explanation that Neruda died of cancer, saying in a 2011 statement that there was "no evidence or proof" to suggest foul play. But his driver, Manuel Araya, said in a 2011 interview with the Mexican political magazine Proceso that his death may have been "induced".

Forensic inquiry

"The mistake was that on Sept 23 we left Neruda alone," Araya said, adding that a nurse had told him how a doctor asked Neruda to be injected with a painkiller, which fueled suspicions of foul play.

"Had he not been left alone, they would not have killed him," Araya added.

The results of the inquiry will find in favor of, or against, the charge made by Neruda's driver.

Neruda's death certificate, to which AFP obtained access, says he died of complications of prostate cancer.

In addition to the driver's accusations, the official complaint cites witnesses who say Neruda was healthy up until the day before his death. They said he did not exhibit symptoms consistent with the advanced cancer.

Araya's statement led Chile's opposition Communist Party to request a forensic inquiry into the cause of his death, despite criticism from some members of Neruda's family.

Neruda's nephew Bernardo Reyes told US news network CNN on Sunday that he did not believe the government of military dictator Augusto Pinochet had ordered the killing of the poet by lethal injection.

Investigating Judge Mario Carroza said at a news briefing: "We are here basically to get started with the activities related to the poet's exhumation. We started with the digging, and we are getting close to the tombstone."

The Chilean justice system gave the go-ahead for the probe in June 2011 after a complaint was filed by the country's Communist Party, of which Neruda was a member.

Police investigators and government forensic experts were on the scene on Sunday. They set up a tent to shield proceedings from the public. The remains of Neruda's third wife, Matilde Urrutia, are also in the tomb.

"We simply want to learn the truth," said Rodolfo Reyes, another of Neruda's nephews, speaking at the grave site. "Neruda's family wants to know the truth, regardless of whether he died of natural causes or was murdered."

"It is not easy for us to explain what they are going to do with the remains, but we think it is necessary," he said.

Xinhua-AFP

(China Daily 04/09/2013 page11)