Rumors that Gen. Augusto Pinochet’s dictatorship might have had a hand in the death of poet Pablo Neruda were substantiated by the Chilean government on Thursday.

According to The Associated Press, the interior ministry released a statement that made room for the possibility that the Nobel-prize winning poet may have been killed shortly after Pinochet’s takeover in 1973.

The statement said it was "clearly possible and highly probable that a third party" was involved in Neruda’s death. The ministry stipulated that a panel of experts investigating the author and activist's death had yet to reach a final conclusion.

The poet, who is generally believed to have died as a result of complications due to prostate cancer, was a leftist politician and diplomat who enjoyed close ties with Chilean president Salvador Allende.

After Pinochet’s fascist takeover, Neruda made plans to go into exile.

One day before he was scheduled to leave Chile he was taken to the Santa Maria clinic in Santiago, where he had been treated for cancer as well as other ailments. He died there on Sept. 23, at the age of 69, from what were called natural causes.

Suspicion surrounding the timing of Neruda’s death has long dogged the memory of the poet. In 2013, his body was exhumed for examination.

Initial tests showed no signs that Neruda was poisoned, but further investigations have been requested.

Neruda, who in 1969 was Chile's Communist Party candidate for the presidency, always linked his politics with his poetry.

Speaking to the The Paris Review, he talked about how he would set up his campaign speeches with song in mind. “First there are always folk songs, and then someone in charge explains the strictly political scope of our campaign,” he said, “After that, the note I strike in order to talk to the townspeople is a much freer one, much less organized; it is more poetic."

Neruda said he almost always finished his speeches by reading poetry. "If I didn’t read some poetry, the people would go away disillusioned,” he said.