Alleged assassin of Pablo Neruda is former CIA and DINA agent Michael Townley

Pablo Neruda

After taking into consideration additional evidence in the compilation regarding the possible assassination of Chilean poet Pablo Neruda, Chilean courts have issued orders to search for the mysterious 'doctor' who allegedly murdered Neruda by injecting a toxic substance in his abdomen. Following two years of investigations, Dr Sergio Draper testified that there had been another doctor with Neruda at the Clinica Santa Maria.

'Dr Price', widely assumed to be an alias for a DINA agent tasked with assassinating the poet, is reported to have been with Neruda on the day he died. A tall, blond and blue eyed man, the description matches that of former CIA and DINA agent Michael Townley, living under the US witness protection programme as part of a plea bargain after confessing to the murder of Carlos Prats and Orlando Letelier.



Michael Townley, ex CIA and DINA agent

Apart from the well known murders of Prats and Letelier, Townley was also a major collaborator at Cuartel Simon Bolivar - the torture and extermination centre which remained DINA's most heavily guarded secret prior to Jorgelino Vergara's testimony regarding the methods of torture and disappearances of prominent MIR and Communist Party militants. Together with biochemist Eduardo Berrios, Townley was responsible for the production of sarin gas and was a frequent visitor to Cuartel Simon Bolivar and Colonia Dignidad, where detainees were used to conduct biological experiments.

The recent developments would seem to render cries of a 'leftist conspiracy' as futile, strengthening Manuel Araya's consistent narrative of an assassination, as opposed to death caused by advanced and metastatic prostate cancer.

For further reading about Michael Townley's role in DINA, see La Danza de los Cuervos: el destino final de los detenidos desaparecidos (Ceibo Ediciones, 2012). Araya's testimony about Neruda's assassination is compiled by authors Francisco Marin and Mario Casasus in El Doble Asesinato de Neruda (Ocho Libros, 2012)