Death of Salvador Allende
On September 11, 1973, Salvador Allende, President of Chile, committed suicide during a coup d'état led by General Augusto Pinochet, commander-in-chief of the Chilean Army.
[1] In Altamirano's words Allende also rejected the option "to do as so many dictators and presidents of Latin America, that is to grab a briefcase full of money and take a plane out the country.
He also stated that, as he was committed to Chile, he would not take an easy way out or be used as a propaganda tool by those he called "traitors" (accepting an offer of safe passage, like Carlos Altamirano).
At the same time, Patricio Guijón (a member of La Moneda's infirmary staff) himself decided to return upstairs to recover his gas-mask as a souvenir.
[11] The other witnesses kept silent until after the restoration of democracy in Chile, as they believed (according to their own statements) that to corroborate the version of a suicide would in some measure downgrade Allende's sacrifice and lend support to the military regime.
Castro's public statements formed the basis of Robinson Rojas' 1975 book The murder of Allende and the end of the Chilean way to socialism.
[14] A further example of pre-2011 controversializing is found in Chilean doctor Luis Ravanal's 2008 article published in the magazine El Periodista stating that Allende's wounds were "not compatible" with suicide.
Asked to comment on Dr. Ravanal's hypothesis, the Chilean congresswoman Isabel Allende, the President's daughter, said that the suicide version is the correct one.
[15] In late January 2011, a Chilean judge opened an investigation into the death of Salvador Allende together with hundreds of other human rights abuses committed during the 1973 coup that brought Augusto Pinochet to power.
The team of Chilean medical experts conducting and reviewing the autopsy results confirmed that Salvador Allende had died from self-inflicted gunshot wounds.
[19] The Guardian, a leading UK newspaper, reported that the "scientific autopsy" had confirmed that "Salvador Allende committed suicide during the 1973 coup that toppled his socialist government."
