EL PASO — An admitted Mexican drug dealer shot by a pair of U.S. Border Patrol agents who were later convicted in the shooting has been charged with smuggling marijuana, authorities said Thursday.
Osvaldo Aldrete Davila was arrested Thursday at an international port of entry in El Paso, according to U.S. Attorney Johnny Sutton.
A sealed indictment issued in October accused him of committing the crimes in September and October of 2005, several months after he was shot in the buttocks in February while fleeing from a pair of Border Patrol agents.
The agents, Jose Alonso Compean and Ignacio Ramos, were convicted last year of shooting Aldrete and lying about it. The agents were each sentenced to more than a decade in prison.
Aldrete is scheduled to appear in federal court in El Paso today.
Sutton noted that critics of the prosecution of the agents have complained that Aldrete, “the fleeing, unarmed drug smuggler they shot,” should have been prosecuted.
“I have repeatedly said that if we obtained sufficient competent and admissible evidence against Aldrete, we would prosecute him,” Sutton said in a statement.
Aldrete’s shooting and the subsequent arrest and conviction of the agents caused a furor among conservative lawmakers and others.
Aldrete was given immunity for the first smuggling attempt to testify against the agents.
