LONDON - The parents of the man blamed for the traffic accident that killed the Princess of Wales say French authorities refused their request for an independent blood-alcohol test.
Jean and Giselle Paul testified today at the London inquest into Diana's death that their son, Henri, was not an alcoholic.
The Pauls also said French authorities were wrong to say that he was drunk on Aug. 31, 1997, when he died in a car crash along with Diana and her boyfriend, Dodi Fayed.
The couple say they are still waiting for French authorities to allow an independent analysis of the blood samples allegedly taken from their son.
Dodi's father, Mohamed Al Fayed, owner of London's Harrods department store and the Ritz Hotel in Paris, insists tests showing Paul was drunk were faked.
He contends that Diana and his son were the targets of a secret-service plot orchestrated by Prince Philip, husband of the Queen, because British authorities did not want the couple to marry.
Two investigations by French and British police concluded that Henri Paul was drunk and speeding when the car hit a pillar in the Pont d'Alma tunnel.
Last week an expert hired by Al Fayed told the inquest he doubted the blood samples belonged to Henri Paul.
Clinical pharmacologist Atholl Johnston said he was suspicious of the consistency of the results reported by French investigators and the high level of carboxyhemoglobin in Paul's blood, which indicated an exposure to carbon monoxide.
Richard Keen, a lawyer for Paul's parents, asked whether the Pauls remembered "approaching the French authorities and explaining that you were not interested in conspiracy theories but that you would like an independent test to be carried out on Henri Paul in order that you could be satisfied that the allegations were either false or true?''
"Yes, but we never had it,'' said Giselle Paul, speaking by video link from France through an interpreter.
An inquest into the deaths -- required by British law when someone dies unexpectedly, violently or of unknown causes -- began last year and is expected to last until spring.
