The government does not really dispute any of this.

“There is a possibility that Mrs. Demiraj will be persecuted,” Jennifer R. Khouri, a Justice Department lawyer, said at the appeals court argument in December. “I’m not saying she won’t risk any harm in Albania. I’m saying she hasn’t met her legal burden when it comes to asylum.”

In a divided decision, a three-judge panel of the federal appeals court in New Orleans agreed. It is true, they said, that a federal law says asylum may be granted when an alien fears persecution “on account of” family membership.

But the judges in the majority added that Mr. Demiraj’s wife and teenage son did not qualify. Their reasoning takes a minute to grasp.

“Mrs. Demiraj is at risk because Bedini seeks to hurt Mr. Demiraj by hurting her — not because he has a generalized desire to hurt the Demiraj family as such,” Judge Catharina Haynes wrote. “Mrs. Demiraj would not be any safer in Albania if she divorced Mr. Demiraj and renounced membership in the family, nor would she be any safer if she were Mr. Demiraj’s girlfriend of many years rather than his wife.”

Logical, I guess. But it does not torture the English language, either, to say that Mr. Bedini aims to harm Mrs. Demiraj and her son “on account of” their familial relationship to Edmond Demiraj. That is how other federal appeals courts have interpreted the asylum law.

The Supreme Court is likely to decide whether to hear an appeal from the appeals court’s ruling this fall. The family’s lawyers say they have more than the law on their side.

“Instead of rewarding Mr. Demiraj for risking his life to protect us from a ruthless gangster, the government delivers his family right into the gangster’s clutches,” said E. Joshua Rosenkranz, a lawyer with Orrick, Herrington and Sutcliffe, which represents the family. “It’s immoral and illegal. But it’s also reckless. If that is how we treat our friends, pretty soon we won’t have any friends left to protect us.”