To: elmatador who wrote (41417 ) 11/13/2008 1:15:50 AM From: Elroy Jetson 1 Recommendation Respond to of 217803 The real wayo behind the death of Austria's Jörg Haider's. He had a fight with his press-spokesman and long-time partner, 28 year old Stefan Petzner, and spent the remainder of the evening drinking at a gay club in Klagenfurt. Haider left with four times te legal alcohol limit and crashed his car into a object by the side of the road. Stefan Petzner, who succeeded the 53 year old Haider as the new leader of the Alliance for the Future of Austrian, tearfully explaned he felt a 'magnetic attraction' for Haider, whom he met five years ago while working as a cosmetics correspondent for a newspaper, Petzner insisted: '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 said that Mr Haider’s main worry was that their relationship would not withstand the age gap. The news stunned Austria, which has been coming to terms with the death of the anti-immigrant politician. Mr Haider, who voted against a parliamentary motion to lower the age of consent for homosexuals, had presented himself as a family man who drank sparingly. He insisted 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.' But Petzner’s sister, Chrisitiane, 30, appeared to cast doubt on her brother’s story. In a newspaper interview she said: 'Sometimes Claudia was jealous because Stefan would spend more time with her husband than she did.' Clearly embarrassed by the revelations, officials at the Alliance for the Future of Austria, yesterday attempted to limit the political damage to the party by cancelling forthcoming interviews with Petzner. However their attempts to prevent his radio interview being rebroadcast were turned down. The fact that Jörg Haider was gay — or at least bisexual — had been an open secret in Austria for years. It was something that political insiders knew but which did not generally appear in the press. Now that Mr. Haider is safely dead, certain details of this previously obscure aspect of his life are surfacing. The man who succeeded him as leader of the BZÖ, has been forced to step down from his position after revealing his relationship with Mr. Haider.daylife.com