Image copyright AP Image caption Pablo Neruda was a staunch supporter of deposed left-wing President Salvador Allende 
 
 Chile has announced a fresh investigation into the death in 1973 of Nobel Prize-winning poet Pablo Neruda. 
 
 Government spokesman Francisco Ugas said there were indications that he could have been poisoned. 
 
 Tests on Neruda's exhumed body in 2013 found no trace of poison but more will now be done. His death certificate says he died of prostate cancer. 
 
 Neruda died 12 days after the military coup that brought General Augusto Pinochet to power. 
 
 Although he was best known for his poetry, Neruda was a lifelong member of Chile's Communist Party, a lawmaker and a former ambassador to France. 
 
 He won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1971. 
 
 New forensic tests on Neruda's remains will be looking for inorganic or heavy metals to try to determine a direct or indirect cause of death, officials said. 
 
 'Specific agents' 
 
 The investigation will focus on detecting if chemical agents caused any cellular or protein damage. 
 
 The previous tests looked specifically for the remains of poison. 
 
 "There is initial evidence that he was poisoned and in that sense the signs point to the intervention of specific agents," Mr Ugas, who is head of the government's humans rights department, said. 
 
 Neruda's body was exhumed in April 2013 to establish whether he died of poisoning, as his driver Manuel Araya and others suspected. 
 
 Mr Araya said Neruda, who was 69, had called him from hospital in Santiago, and told him he was feeling sick after having been given an injection in the stomach. 
 
 Some believe he was poisoned because he was a staunch supporter of deposed President Salvador Allende and it was believed he would become a leader of opposition to the dictatorship. ||||| A view of the tombstone of Chilean poet and Nobel laureate Pablo Neruda inside the grounds of his house-museum before the exhumation of his remains in the coastal town of Isla Negra, about 106 km (66 miles) northwest of Santiago April 7, 2013. 
 
 Tourists visit the tomb of Chilean poet and Nobel laureate Pablo Neruda inside the grounds of his house-museum before the exhumation of his remains in the coastal town of Isla Negra, about 106 km (66 miles) northwest of Santiago April 7, 2013. 
 
 SANTIAGO Spanish researchers investigating the early '70s death of Chilean poet Pablo Neruda to determine if he was poisoned, have found no conclusive evidence of foul play, according to an initial report handed to the investigating judge. 
 
 The Chilean government reopened the investigation into his death in January, with new tests designed to look for protein damage caused by chemical agents, suggesting poisoning. 
 
 Forensic experts at the Universidad de Murcia found three types of protein in the remains of Neruda, a Nobel laureate, two of which could be explained by advanced prostrate cancer, said the report seen by Reuters on Thursday. 
 
 The source of the third protein was not immediately clear, but could be due to natural causes such as infection, or posthumous manipulation of the remains, the report said. 
 
 An expert panel will now examine the evidence, while a further genomic analysis is still pending. 
 
 Neruda, famed for his passionate love poems and staunch communist views, is presumed to have died of cancer days after a coup in 1973 that ushered in the brutal dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet. 
 
 However, the poet's chauffeur has claimed that Pinochet's agents took advantage of Neruda's illness to inject poison into his stomach as he lay in hospital. 
 
 Initial tests on his exhumed body in 2013 found no evidence of the remains of poison. 
 
 Neruda's family and supporters have been divided over whether the case should be closed and his remains returned to his grave near his coastal home of Isla Negra, or whether researchers should continue carrying out tests. 
 
 "The data analysis requires a dose of caution to avoid jumping to conclusions in the absence of additional information which we currently lack," it said. 
 
 (Writing by Rosalba O'Brien; Editing by Bernadette Baum)
– It's another strike against the claim of Pablo Neruda's chauffeur, who contends that agents of Augusto Pinochet poisoned the acclaimed Chilean poet by injecting something into his stomach while he was being treated for cancer. Neruda died in 1973 and was exhumed 40 years later; in late 2013, forensic test results showed no chemical agents in his bones. Now, an initial report drafted by Spanish researchers and seen by Reuters similarly finds no indication he was murdered. In reporting Chile's reopening of the investigation, the BBC in January explained that a new round of tests would zero in on whether "chemical agents caused any cellular or protein damage"; the aim of prior testing was to look for remnants of poison. Reuters explains that three types of protein were identified in Neruda's remains by Universidad de Murcia forensic experts: two proteins could be related to advanced prostate cancer; the experts were less sure about the other, but the report suggested it could have a natural source (perhaps an infection, or something that arose from how his body was handled post-mortem). The case isn't closed: An expert panel will weigh in, and a genomic analysis has yet to be completed.