The driver of Nobel prize-winning poet Pablo Neruda claims the poet didn't die of cancer, but was murdered by the Pinochet regime.

Nobel prize-winning poet Pablo Neruda died of cancer September 23, 1973. However, 40 years after his death, the poet's driver and body guard claims it wasn't cancer that took the poet's life but the Pinochet regime. They murdered him because they felt there was a high possibility that the poet would become a renowned voice of dissidence.

Neruda's body will now be dug up from his grave for further investigation, reports the Guardian.

Among other pieces of evidence are reports from the pro-Pinochet El Mercurio newspaper the day after Neruda's death, referring to an injection immediately beforehand. The official death certificate said an advanced and incurable cancer led to malnutrition and wasting away.

"There were three main voices who could have continued the Allende legacy," said Eduardo Contreras, a Chilean lawyer who has been pushing for a thorough investigation of Neruda's death. "There was Allende, Víctor Jara [the folk singer] and Pablo Neruda. Allende died on the day of the coup, Jara soon after, the only one left was Neruda. Why not eliminate the third symbol? I can't assure that he was killed or who might have done it, but there are too many suspicious acts [not to investigate]."

The Pablo Neruda Foundation, which manages the poet's estate, has fought the exhumation order and claims that Araya's charges of murder are not believable.

"It doesn't seem reasonable to build a new version of the death of the poet based only on the opinions of his driver," a statement said. "It is very debatable whether Pablo Neruda was really on his death bed," said Contreras, who has laboriously reconstructed the poet's final weeks and concluded that rather than being deeply unwell, Neruda was planning for his exile in Mexico, having intercourse with a lover and discussing the chaotic first days of the Pinochet dictatorship."