mysql2date in ajax module broken

Hi!
I’ve been trying in vain to get mysql2date() showing properly localized month names in my ajax module.

Here is the complete line:
$date = mysql2date(get_option('date_format'), current_time('mysql'));

Including or not including wp-config.php doesn’t make a difference the month name is always displayed in English.

Loading locale.php directly and assigning a custom $wp_locale via:
$wp_locale_custom =& new WP_Locale();

and consequently trying:
echo $wp_locale_custom->get_month(1);

DOES work! But that can’t be the solution, unless I would copy and paste the complete mysql2date conversion calls…which is at best a kludge.

Any thoughts on what to do?
Thank you!
Oliver