Daniel Pearl’s widow seeks 9/11 fund

NEW YORK – The widow of slain Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl is seeking compensation from the September 11 victims’ fund, saying her husband, like the victims of the attacks, was a US citizen targeted by Is­lamic extremists.

Mariane Pearl has filed a formal appeal with the fund after initially being denied, The New York Times reported March 30.

Daniel Pearl was kidnapped January23, 2002, in Karachi while working on a story, and was later killed.

“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 Times. “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.”

Kenneth Feinberg, special master of the fund, said he denied the application about three weeks ago because it did not meet the government’s stipulation that victims had to have died in New York, Pennsylvania or Washington as a result of the September 11 attack.

“I’m very sympathetic to the inquiry, but the statute is the statute, and I do not have any discretion,” Feinberg told the Times.

Source: The Nation

Date:3/31/2004