Pablo Neruda's remains arrive at Chilean Congress

The remains of famous Chilean poet Pablo Neruda arrived at the Congress in Santiago for a ceremony on Monday before being buried a day after, three years after exhumation.

The coffin was taken from the premises of the Legal Medical Service (SML) to the Congress in the capital, where the Nobel-winning poet's family received it, EFE news reported.

"It is an honour and a moral duty to carry out this ceremony so that authorities and citizens accompany him on his return to Isla Negra," said Rodolfo Reyes, one of Neruda's nephews.

In April 2013, Neruda's remains were exhumed on Isla Negra as part of an investigation into the alleged involvement of third parties in his death in 1973, a few days after the coup of General Augusto Pinochet.

On Tuesday, the poet's coffin will be taken to his home in Isla Negra, where he will be buried in the presence of some of his relatives.

The writer passed away in a clinic in Santiago on September 23, 1973, apparently due to prostate cancer.

In 2011, the Chilean Communist Party filed a lawsuit demanding that the poet's death be investigated.

Experts ruled out the intervention of third parties in his death, but the judge in charge of the investigation Mario Carroza kept the case open because the results were inconclusive, and ordered new tests.

Without complete clarity on the cause of his death, the poet's remains will be returned to the grave in which he was originally buried, next to the body of his third and last wife Matilde Urrutia.

--IANS

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