A judge in Chile has ordered that the body of Pablo Neruda should be returned to his grave for reburial. The Guardian reports that the poet’s remains have been lying in forensic laboratories in four countries in an attempt to determine whether his death may have been accelerated by poisoning.

Neruda, who won the Nobel prize for literature in 1971, was being treated for cancer. He died on 23 September 1973, 12 days after the military coup. In 2011, the poet’s former driver told a Mexican magazine that Neruda, a member of Chile’s Communist party, had been murdered by an injection to his stomach by political enemies as he lay in his hospital bed in Santiago. In 2013, a judge ordered the exhumation of Neruda’s body to investigate the claims.

His bones were examined by forensic scientists in Santiago, North Carolina in the US and Murcia, Spain. In November 2013, forensic experts announced that they had found no evidence of poisoning, although the investigation was not formally ended. In January this year, the Chilean government announced that it was reopening the case. New tests were ordered, while Further tests were also initiated at a laboratory in Switzerland.

Now Mario Carroza, the Chilean judge in charge of the case, has issued new instructions for Neruda’s body to be returned in April to his grave in front of his coastal home at Isla Negra. But one of Neruda’s nephews, Rodolfo Reyes, a lawyer, said it was important to exhaust all possible tests on the poet’s body before he is reburied. Reyes remains convinced that the poisoning allegations deserve serious attention.

Another of Neruda’s nephews is delighted that the poet’s remains are returning to his homeland. Bernardo Reyes said: “The time of the loudmouths, mythomaniacs and upstarts is finally coming to an end. Those who crudely made use of a supposed witness to an imaginary murder will have to face the consequences.”

From early this year, trains on Santiago’s Metro have been emblazoned with text from Neruda’s celebrated 1924 collection, Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair. A debate is continuing in Chile over whether to rename Santiago airport after the poet. More details