• Body of Nobel laureate Pablo Neruda exhumed in murder probe

    AFP - Getty Images

    A photo from Oct. 21, 1971, shows writer, poet and diplomat Pablo Neruda, then Chilean ambassador to France, answering journalists' questions in Paris. Neruda's remains were exhumed Monday in an effort to determine whether he was poisoned.

    By Rodrigo Garrido, Reuters

    ISLA NEGRA, Chile -- The body of Chilean Nobel laureate Pablo Neruda, dead nearly four decades, was exhumed on Monday after his former driver said the poet was poisoned under Augusto Pinochet's dictatorship.

    Neruda, famed for his passionate love poems and staunch communist views, is presumed to have died from prostate cancer on Sept. 23, 1973.

    But Manuel Araya, who was Neruda's chauffer during the ailing writer's last few months, says agents of the dictatorship took advantage of his illness to inject poison into his stomach while he was bedridden at the Santa Maria clinic in Santiago.

    "We're hoping for a positive result because Neruda was assassinated. Pinochet made an error when he ordered Neruda be killed," said Araya. Results are expected in coming months.

    Neruda was a supporter of socialist President Salvador Allende, who was toppled in a military coup on September 11, 1973, nearly two weeks before the poet's death at age 69. Around 3,000 people are thought to have been killed by the brutal 17-year-long dictatorship that ensued.

    Neruda was buried in his coastal home of Isla Negra beside his third wife, Matilde Urrutia.

    His remains will be brought to Santiago for analysis. Some samples could be sent to laboratories abroad.

    Chilean judiciary via AFP - Getty Images

    Coroner's office personnel and relatives of Chilean poet Pablo Neruda carry a coffin containing his remains after their exhumation in Isla Negra, 75 miles west of Santiago, on Monday.

    Ricardo Eliecer Neftali Reyes Basoalto, better known by his pen name, was a larger-than-life fixture in Chile's literary and political scene.

    While best known for his collection "Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair," published in 1924, Neruda was also an important political activist during a turbulent time in Chile.

    He organized a ship to bring about 2,000 Spanish refugees fleeing the civil war there to Chile in 1939, campaigned for Allende and was ambassador to France during the socialist's presidency.

    The Andean country's intelligentsia frequently congregated in Isla Negra, as well as in his Santiago home "La Chascona" -- so named for his then-mistress Urrutia's messy red hair -- and La Sebastiana, his ship-themed home in the port town of Valparaiso.

    Democratically elected Allende committed suicide in the presidential palace as it was under attack by the military, experts confirmed last year, amid accusations he had been murdered during the coup.

    Chilean courts are also investigating the death of ex-President Eduardo Frei Montalva, who is presumed to have died in 1982 of an infection after a hernia operation. Some say he was poisoned by Pinochet's agents.

    Related:

    Communists ask to exhume Neruda's body

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  • Arafat's body exhumed; experts to investigate if he was poisoned

    Labs in France, Russia and Switzerland will conduct independent tests of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's bone samples, searching for evidence that he could have been poisoned. NBC's Martin Fletcher reports.

    By NBC News staff and wire services

    Updated at 10:40 a.m. ET: The remains of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat were exhumed from his grave on Tuesday -- eight years after his death at age 75 — as part of an investigation into allegations that he was poisoned, according to official Palestinian radio. 


    Arafat's body was uncovered in its grave and samples were removed without having to lift the corpse from the ground. As a result, a planned reburial ceremony with full military honors was called off.

    The tomb was resealed in hours and wreaths were placed by Palestinian leaders including Prime Minister Salam Fayyad.

     

    "The state of the body was exactly what you would expect to find for someone who has been buried for eight years. There was nothing out of the ordinary," Health Minister Hani Abdeen told a news conference.

    A Palestinian medical team took samples and gave them to Swiss, French and Russian experts who flew in for the exhumation and who will examine them in their home countries, the officials said. Samples were taken earlier from Arafat's bedroom, office and personal belongings, they said.

    Arafat case: 'Proof' still might elude Palestinians

    French judges opened a murder inquiry into Arafat's death in August after a Swiss institute said it had discovered high levels of radioactive polonium on his clothing.

    Slideshow: Arafat, in images

    AP

    See key moments and memorable scenes from Yasser Arafat's life.

    Launch slideshow

    Jordanian doctor Abdullah al Bashir, head of the Palestinian medical committee, said about 20 samples were taken and analysis would take at least three months.

    "In order to do these analyses, to check, cross-check and double cross-check, it will take several months and I don't think we'll have anything tangible available before March or April next year," said Darcy Christen, spokesman for Lausanne University Hospital in Switzerland that carried out tests on Arafat's clothes.

    Rumors of foul play have long surrounded the sudden demise of Arafat, a champion of Palestinian statehood from the time he was 19, and eventually, the democratically elected president of the Palestinian Authority.

    Arafat was revered by many Palestinians and Arabs as a freedom fighter and reviled by many Israelis and its allies as a terrorist for his relentless fight for Palestinian self-determination. But he also had enemies and rivals within the Arab and Palestinian political circles.

    He died in November 2004 at a French military hospital, a month after suddenly falling ill. The rapid deterioration of his health and death baffled doctors who were trying to treat him in France, and an autopsy was never performed at the request of his widow, Suha.

    'A painful necessity'
    While the immediate cause of death was a stroke, the underlying source of an illness he suffered in his final weeks has never been clear, leading to persistent speculation in the Arab world that Israel poisoned him. Israel has denied such allegations.

    Poisoning as a cause of death gained currency after a Swiss institute said it had found high levels of radioactive polonium on Arafat's clothing, which was supplied by Suha, prompting the French to open a formal murder inquiry.

    Polonium was the substance that killed Alexander Litvinenko in London in 2006. Litvenenko was a Russian ex-spy who later became a relentless critic of the Kremlin.

    "It is a painful necessity" to exhume the body of Arafat, said Tawfiq al-Tirawi, who is in charge of the Palestinian committee overseeing the investigation, speaking to reporters in Ramallah on Saturday.

    Tirawi said the Palestinians had "evidence which suggests Arafat was assassinated by Israelis," Reuters reported.

    The exhumation might not resolve the mystery. Polonium-210 decomposes rapidly, and some experts say it is not clear whether any remaining samples will be sufficient for testing. 

    NBC's Kari Huus, Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

    Palestinians have begun to exhume the body of Palestine Liberation Organization leader Yasser Arafat in an attempt to determine whether he was assassinated by lethal doses of radioactive poison. NBC's John Ray reports.

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