Volen Siderov, leader of Bulgaria's ultra-nationalist Ataka party, has sent condolences to the Alliance for the Future of Austria party after its leader Jorg Haider died in a high-speed car accident on October 11 2008. Siderov also queried whether it was an accident.

Haider, whose anti-immigration, anti-Muslim and xenophobic views repulsed mainstream Europe but won him a political career in Austria and saw his party win more than 10 per cent in Austria's recent general election, was an associate of Siderov in the context of ultra-nationalists who made common cause in Europe.

Apart from various communications, a party in which Haider formerly was prominent - the Austrian Freedom Party - is a constituent member with Ataka of the Identity, Tradition, Sovereignty (ITS) group of nationalist parties in the European Parliament. The group was formed in 2007 after Bulgaria and Romania joined the European Union.

Ironically, the Austrian representative in ITS is a politician who returned to the party only after Haider was expelled from it, going on to form his own.

Ataka and Haider's associates found common cause, with Ataka also spreading anti-Semitism, anti-Turkish and anti-Muslim views, along with other items on an extensive menu of intolerance. In one of his books, Siderov called into question the Holocaust. Haider, among other statements, said that Hitler's SS should be honoured as part of the German armed forces, and praised law and order and employment policies under the Nazis.

Siderov's letter, according to a report by Bulgarian news agency BTA, wished Haider's party and his family courage, and called into question the circumstances of the accident in which Haider died.

International news agencies reported that Haider died after the car in which he was travelling overturned on the road near Koettmannsdorf near Klagenfurt. The car was doing 142 km/h, more than double the speed limit. Haider had been on the way to the birthday of his mother, who was turning 90.

Ataka questioned the accident "in the light of the enormous support" that Haider's party and the party with which Haider formerly was associated, the Freedom Party, won in the September 2008 elections.