http://www.foxnews.com/wires/2007Nov15/ ... mlThursday, November 15, 2007

EL PASO, Texas — A Mexican man shot by a pair of U.S. Border Patrol agents who were later convicted in the shooting has been indicted on federal drug smuggling charges, 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 was issued in October charging him with smuggling marijuana in September and October of 2005, several months after he was shot in the buttocks 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.

Aldrete is scheduled to appear in federal court in El Paso on Friday.

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.