Pablo Neruda to be exhumed over claims poet poisoned by Pinochet Forty years after the death of the Nobel Prize-winning Chilean poet Pablo Neruda, his body is set to be exhumed in April to get to the bottom of rumours he was assassinated by the military dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet. Neruda died, officially from prostrate cancer, on September 23, 1973, just twelve days after the military coup that brought Pinochet to power, and had been a passionate and vocal supporter of the overthrown socialist government. Manuel Araya, the poet's chaffeur and personal secretary at the time of his death, has long insisted Neruda was killed with a lethal injection on the regime's orders. Images and soundbites of an AFPTV interview with Araya.