DNA tests carried out on samples taken from the body of Spanish surrealist artist, Salvador Dali on July 21 as part of a paternity suit placed by former TV fortune teller Pilar Abel have shown that he was not her father as she claimed him to be.

The Foundation Gala-Salvador Dali confirmed the news on Wednesday, meaning Abel's story that she was the fruit of a 1955 relationship between the artist, who died in January 1989, and her mother, is false.

In order to carry out the DNA testing required in the case, Dali's body was exhumed (under protest by the Foundation which bears his name) from its resting place in the Teatre-Museu de Figueres and the samples were removed.

The operation required the removal of a one and a half-ton slab of stone which had covered Dali's tomb for the past 28 years and the story made headlines inSpainand around the world.

Had Abel's claims been proved to be correct, she would have been able to use Dali's surname and have had a claim to his estate, which he left to the Spanish nation, but as things now stand the artist can once again rest in peace and this time he is unlikely to be disturbed again.