| A man shot by a pair of Border Patrol agents during a drug smuggling attempt was sentenced to nearly a decade in prison Wednesday for separate smuggling incidents committed while he was waiting to testify against the agents. Osvaldo Aldrete Davila, who was wounded in the buttocks while fleeing from an abandoned marijuana load in 2005, was sentenced to 9 1/2 years in prison for his role in two other smuggling efforts later that same year. His sentencing came a little more than a week after a federal appeals court upheld lengthy sentences for the two agents convicted in his shooting, Ignacio Ramos and Jose Alonso Compeau. Several members of Congress have called on President Bush to commute the agents' sentences or pardon them. Aldrete was shot in February 2005, and testified against the agents in their 2006 trial, telling jurors he was unarmed when he was shot as he ran toward Mexico after a brief scuffle with Compean. Ramos and Compean argued they believed Aldrete had a weapon. Aldrete pleaded guilty in April to two counts of possession with the intent to distribute a controlled substance, and one count each of conspiracy to import a controlled substance and conspiracy to possess a controlled substance. |
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