Man shot by jailed ex-border agents tells his story

By Louie Gilot / El Paso Times

Article Launched: 05/08/2007 12:00:00 AM MDT

JUAREZ -- The man at the center of a case that has outraged U.S. conservatives and become a cause célebre on cable news shows lives in a white one-room house with a neat yard in the Valley of Juárez.

In his village, most people know Osvaldo Aldrete Davila. They know that in 2005 he was shot in the buttocks by two El Paso Border Patrol agents while trying to smuggle a load of marijuana just across the border, near Fabens. The agents, Jose Alonso Compean and Ignacio Ramos, were sentenced to 12 and 11 years in prison and started serving their sentences earlier this year.

In the village, neighbors walk by Aldrete Davila's little house and wave.

But in the United States, supporters of the agents, who include anti-immigrant groups, conservative congressmen, cable news personalities and countless bloggers, have called him a "heinous criminal," a "doper," a "dirt bag" and much worse.