AUSTRIAN TIMES: The widow of former Carinthian Governor Jörg Haider has visited the Pope at the Vatican to receive a blessing before spending her first Easter alone.
Claudia Haider and her daughter Ulrike visited Pope Benedict XVI on Tuesday this week with a small group after making the request to see him.
The last trip Haider made with her late husband was to Rome, where the Pope received them both. She reportedly wanted to get the Pope’s blessing before spending her first Easter without her late husband.
Claudia Haider gave the Pope a photograph of her late husband, the Pope and herself taken during the papal audience at which the Pope had received the two of them. >>> Austrian Times | Thursday, April 2, 2009
THE INDEPENDENT: Jörg Haider's corpse was sent for a second post-mortem in Italy today after the Austrian far-right leader's widow voiced fears that that his death in a high speed car crash in early October might not have been an accident.
Senior members of his Alliance for the Future of Austria party said that Claudia Haider had serious doubts that her husband was killed as a result of drunk driving and suspected he may have been drugged.
Mr Haider died after his VW Phaeton limousine left the road and somersaulted several times in the early hours of 11 October.
He was driving at twice the speed limit, and an initial post mortem showed that he had four times the legal limit of alcohol in his bloodstream.
However his widow has refused to accept those findings and insisted that her husband's cremation, which had been due to take place earlier this week, be postponed indefinitely.
Mr Haider's former party colleagues said his body would be subjected to a second post-mortem in Italy and further tests by German pathologists to determine whether foul play may have played a role in his death.
Claudia Haider was said to be highly sceptical of Austrian pathologists' conclusions that the 58-year-old politician had consumed such a large amount of alcohol in such a short space of time. She was reported to have said that such behaviour was not in his character and that she feared that he may have been given drugs. Party officials have said there were no skid marks on the road at the accident site and he may have already been unconscious when he crashed. >>> By Tony Paterson in Berlin | October 24, 2008
KURIER: Die Witwe erklärt Verschwörungstheorien für "Unsinn". Die Obduktion solle auch nicht im Ausland stattfinden, stellt sie richtig.
Wilde Spekulationen kursieren um die verschobene Einäscherung von Jörg Haider. Witwe Claudia Haider weist jedoch die Gerüchte zurück: "Alle diese Gerüchte, wonach es eine Obduktion im Ausland gegeben haben soll, sind völliger Unsinn". In die gleiche Kategorie würden diverse Verschwörungstheorien fallen.
Der Leichnam ihres Mannes werde mit Sicherheit nicht irgendwohin ins Ausland gebracht werden, erklärte sie. Eine zweite Obduktion könne sie aber nicht völlig ausschließen. Zum jetzigen Zeitpunkt sei es aber äußerst unwahrscheinlich, dass sie sich zu diesem Schritt entschließe. Darüber hinaus wolle sie zu all den Spekulationen und Gerüchten, die derzeit kursieren, keinerlei Stellungnahme abgeben. Den Medienhype um den Tod ihres Mannes bezeichnete sie als "widerwärtig".
Die Witwe betonte, dass sie nichts verschweigen wolle, sie zur Zeit aber weder zu Interviews noch zu öffentlichen Stellungnahmen bereit sei. Eine Freundin Claudia Haiders bat darum, "ihr die Zeit zu geben, mit der ganzen Sache fertig zu werden". Die Witwe werde irgendwann öffentlich Stellung nehmen, allerdings müssten bis dahin noch einige Dinge geklärt werden. >>> apa/ce | Freitag, 24. Oktober 2008
Photo of Jörg Haider with Stefan Petzner courtesy of The Independent
THE INDEPENDENT: Conservative Austria was in a state of shock today after the male successor to Jörg Haider admitted to having a longstanding “special relationship” with the far right leader who died dramatically in a high speed car crash earlier this month.
Stefan Petzner – the 27-year-old who recently replaced Haider as leader of the right wing Alliance for the Future of Austria and has often appeared in tears on television since his death - effectively outed himself as the deceased’s gay lover while being interviewed on an Austrian radio breakfast show.
“I had to go to him. I had to go to him,” Mr Petzner said in his highly emotional interview as he recalled how he rushed to the hospital where the dead body of 52-year-old* [sic] Haider was lying after his fatal crash in early October.
Admitting that he felt a “magnetic attraction” for Haider, whom he met five years ago while working as a cosmetics reporter, Mr Petzner insisted: “We had a relationship that went far beyond friendship. Jörg and I were connected by something truly special. He was the man of my life.”
He insisted that Mr Haider’s widow, Claudia did not object to his relationship: “She loved him as a woman. He loved her as a man. I loved him in a completely different and personal way. She understood that,” Mr Petzner said. However, the young man’s sister Christiane suggested in a newspaper interview that Mrs Haider had not always been so understanding. “Sometimes Claudia was jealous because Stefan would spend more time with her husband than she did.”
Clearly embarrassed by the revelations, party officials today attempted to limit the political damage and cancelled forthcoming interviews with Mr Petzner. Their attempts to prevent his radio interview being rebroadcast, however, were unsuccessful. >>> By Tony Paterson in Berlin | October 22, 2008
*Jörg Haider was actually born in 1950.
YouTube Video: Stefan Petzner: Jörg Haider ist tot
DIE PRESSE: Neuer BZÖ-Klubchef Bucher: Kampfansage an ÖVP
Foto von Josef Bucher , der neue BZÖ-Klubchef dank der Presse
Knalleffekt in der Obmannsuche: Der 43-jährige Kärntner Josef Bucher wird überraschend neuer BZÖ-Klubchef. Der designierte Parteichef Stefan Petzner hatte Bucher selbst vorgeschlagen.
Am Ende der längeren konstituierenden Sitzung im Parlament des BZÖ am Mittwoch stand eine faustdicke Überraschung: Josef Buchner, 43-jähriger Kärntner aus Friesach wurde einstimmig zum neuen Klubobmann gewählt. Bucher wird fünf Stellvertreter haben: Den designierten BZÖ-Obmann Stefan Petzner, Ursula Haubner, Herbert Scheibner, Ewald Stadler und Peter Westenthaler. Petzner, der als Favorit galt, sagte nach der Sitzung, er selbst habe Bucher als Klubobmann vorgeschlagen.
"Ich glaube, dass wir uns sehr gut ergänzen", so Bucher über Petzner. Der neue Klubchef sieht in der Trennung der beiden Führungspositionen "überhaupt nichts Ungewöhnliches". Petzner sei als Stratege unverzichtbar, vor allem, da es in den kommenden Jahren einige Wahlen zu schlagen gebe. Petzner wiederum würdigte Bucher als Wirtschaftsprofi, der gerade in Zeiten der Finanzkrise absolutes Know-how vorzuweisen habe. >>> | 23. Oktober 2008
Seif Gaddafi, Muammar Gaddafi’s son, was a personal friend of Jörg Haider. Photo of Seif Gaddafi with Claudi Haider, Jörg Haider’s wife, courtesy of ’Die Presse’
