Late Austrian rightist Haider was drunk in fatal car crash

Oct 15, 2008, 14:22 GMT

Vienna - Austrian far-right politician Joerg Haider was drunk - with a blood-alcohol content almost four times the legal limit when he died in a car crash last Saturday, Stefan Petzner, his successor as head of the Alliance for the Future of Austria, said Wednesday.

Haider was driving at 142 kilometres per hour, more than double the speed limit, when his car veered off the road and flipped over in Klagenfurt, the capital of the Carinthia province where he was governor.

Forensic experts have determined that at the time of the accident, Haider's blood alcohol level 1.8 pro mille (1.8 milligrams per millilitre of blood, or 0.18 per cent) almost four times the legal limit of 0.5 pro mille.

Before the crash that occurred at 1:15 local time, Haider and Petzner had spent the evening at a party to celebrate the launching of a new magazine.

Petzner asked the media 'to press the stop button here and now and to conclude the coverage of the accident' out of respect for Haider's family.

Media have reported that conspiracy theories that the car had been tampered with were circulating in Carinthia, where Haider's party won 43 per cent of the vote in the 2004 provincial elections.

A forensic expert who examined the car has excluded such a scenario.

In Carinthia, Haider was well-liked for his social policies, but he was a divisive figure on the national level because of his staunch anti-foreigner stance and remarks that trivialized Hitler's national socialist regime.

Since last Saturday, thousands of local citizens have placed placed candles and flowers outside the governor's office and at the accident site.

Haider's Alliance won 11 per cent in parliamentary elections in late September.

A large public memorial service is set to take place Saturday in the centre of Klagenfurt.

Besides Austrian officials, politicians of the anti-immigrant Italian party Northern League have said they would attend.