The family of Pablo Neruda claimed that the Chilean poet-diplomat died after being injected an aggressive and penicillin-resistant bacterium in Sept. 1973, a few days after the Pinochet regime rose to power.

"The investigation represents a major advance because it contradicts the official story that Neruda died of (prostate cancer). With all these new (elements), we think that there indeed was third-party intervention," Rodolfo Reyes, Neruda's nephew and plaintiff for a case determining his cause of death, said at a press conference on Friday, as reported by Fox News Latino.

A team of experts from the United States, Spain, Denmark, and Canada will travel to Chile next week to study the origin of the Staphylococcus aureus bacterium found in Neruda's bones, Fox News Latino added.

The poet, who's also a politician and a member of the Communist Party, had been admitted to the Santa Maria Hospital eight days after the Sept. 11, 1973 coup d'etat, which overthrew Socialist President Salvador Allende from his seat. The hospital is said to have been overtaken by the military at the time, the news outlet noted.

According to Fox News Latino, the same bacterium found in Neruda's remains was used by Eugenio Berrios, a secret-police chemist and agent in Gen. Augusto Pinochet's 1973-1990 rule. The attorney of the Communist Party of Chile, Eduardo Contreras, said that the bacterium was used to get rid of the military dictatorship's enemies.

The Nobel literature laureate died on Sept. 23, 1973 at the age of 69, with the hospital's official record stating prostate cancer as the cause of his death, Business Standard wrote. His assistant and driver, Manuel Araya, reiterated in May 2011 that the "Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair" author was murdered by agents of the Pinochet regime.

In April 2013, Neruda's remains were exhumed for investigation, and in November of the same year, a group of international experts said that there was no evidence of poison in his body, the news outlet further wrote.

However, second thoughts about the investigation surfaced when the presence of the bacterium in Neruda's body surfaced when a new examination was opened, Business Standard reported.

Fox News Latino noted that the massive bacterial infection in Neruda's remains was found by forensic experts from Spain's University of Murcia. The tests were conducted in May as part of an investigation by Chilean Judge Mario Carroza to determine the true cause of Neruda's death.

Neruda was awarded the Nobel Prize in literature in 1971 "for a poetry that with the action of an elemental force brings alive a continent's destiny and dreams," the award-giving body's official site wrote. He was born in Parral, Chile on July 12, 1904.