Witness Feels Betrayed as U.S. Plans to Divide Family

[Swede]

About a decade ago, a federal prosecutor in Texas asked Edmond Demiraj to testify against an Albanian mobster charged with human smuggling.

Mr. Demiraj had information: He had worked with the mobster, Bill Bedini, in a construction business and had sent money abroad for him. The prosecutor had leverage: Mr. Demiraj, an Albanian citizen, was in the United States illegally.

The two sides made a deal, Mr. Demiraj said. In exchange for his testimony, he and his family would be kept safe.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/09/us/09bar.html?_r=4&hpw

[MADem]

1. I think the Supremes will hear the case, and they'll prevail. We will see.

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.”

The justices have received a pile of supporting briefs from human rights groups and law professors urging the court to hear the case. But the most interesting supporting brief was filed by some 40 former federal law enforcement officials, including Dick Thornburgh, who was attorney general under Presidents Ronald Reagan and the elder George Bush, and William S. Sessions, who served as director of the F.B.I. in three administrations.

The appeals court’s ruling, they said, “makes insiders who are crucial to the fight against international organized crime less likely to cooperate with law enforcement.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/09/us/09bar.html

[Kurmudgeon]

2. I certainly hope so, Mr. Demira and his family have been done very wrong by all of this.