Haider’s gay lover comes forward

The death of Joerg Haider (pictured) – the Austrian far-right politician who was killed in a car crash earlier this month – has resulted in the confirmation of the long-running rumour that he was a homosexual. First it was revealed that he had visited a gay bar on the night he died and now Stefan Petzner, the 27-year-old who recently became the leader of the right wing Alliance for the Future of Austria, has claimed that he enjoyed a "special relationship" with 52-year-old Haider .

He made his admission in an emotional interview on an Austrian radio breakfast show on Wednesday. "We had a relationship that went far beyond friendship. Joerg and I were connected by something truly special. He was the man of my life."

He went on to insist that 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," Petzner said. However, the young man's sister Christiane suggested in a newspaper interview that Claudia 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 attempted to limit the political damage and cancelled forthcoming interviews with Petzner. Their attempts to prevent his radio interview being re-broadcast, however, were unsuccessful.