The widow of slain Wall Street Journal Daniel Pearl has been denied compensation under the Federal September 11 Victims' fund, the New York Times reported on Wednesday.

Contending that her husband was a US citizen targeted by extremists, Marianne Pearl has filed a formal appeal with the fund and asked the Congress to consider drafting a new law that would grant eligibility to her and her son.

The administrator of the Fund, Kenneth R Feinberg rejected Marianne Pearl's claim as it lay outside the purview of the congressional statute governing the fund, the report said.

The application was rejected, as it did not meet the government's stipulation that the victims had to have died in New York, Pennylvania or Washington as a result of the 9/11 attack.

"I am very sympathetic to the inquiry but the statute is the statute, and I do not have any discretion," Feiberg told the NYT.

"What's horribly, painfully obvious, is that if Danny Pearl had come from any other country in the world, he'd be alive today," Mariane Pearl's lawyer Robert Kelner told the paper.

"And because there is a 9/11 fund which is compensating people for the exact same kind of death, we feel that Danny should be included as a victim in the same class as other victims," he added.