The AP is reporting Joerg Haider, Leader of the far right party Alliance for the Future of Austria, has died in a car crash. For those not familiar with Haider, he was basically your typical ultra nationalist Nazi sympathizer type, in the vain of France's Jean-Marie Le Pen.
Here's a snippet of the article:
Austrian politician Joerg Haider, whose far-right rhetoric at times cast a negative light on the Alpine republic, has died in a car accident at age 58.
Police said the accident happened early Saturday morning in the south of the country when his car veered off the road near the city of Klagenfurt and overturned. He suffered severe injuries to his face and chest. It was not immediately clear if he died at the scene or in a hospital.In 1999, Haider received 27 percent of the vote in national elections as leader of the Freedom Party. The party's subsequent inclusion in the government led to months of European Union sanctions over Haider's statements, which were seen as anti-Semitic or sympathetic to Adolf Hitler's labor policies.
Haider had since significantly toned down his rhetoric. Over the summer, he staged a comeback in national politics and helped his Alliance for the Future of Austria significantly improve their standing in Sept. 28 national elections.
Haider and his supporters broke away from the Freedom Party in 2005 to form the new movement meant to reflect a turn toward relative moderation.
In particular, Haider wanted to distance himself from his rightist past, which included a comment in 1991 that the Third Reich had an "orderly employment policy" and a 1995 reference to concentration camps as "the punishment camps of National Socialism."