Washington  - A man who sold illicit military equipment and airplanes to Israel in the late 1940s was pardoned for his crimes more than 20 years after his death by US President George W Bush.

Charles Winters was among the 19 individuals Bush granted mercy to on Tuesday, part of the presidential power that snowballs in the waning days of office.

Winters was a Boston-born Protestant businessman who shipped fresh produce overseas, and who in 1948 sold decommissioned B-17 bombers to Israel's Haganah guerrilla group. He apparently even flew one of the planes for delivery, media reports said.

Winters, who died in 1984 at age 71, was charged and convicted for violating the US Neutrality Act and served 18 months in federal prison for his crime, the White House said in a statement.

Winters was one of three US citizens prosecuted for helping the Jewish guerrillas in their fight to carve out their own nation in Arab lands after the British left in 1948.

The other two - radio personality Herman Greenspun and former Army flight engineer Al Schwimmer - were pardoned by former presidents John Kennedy and Bill Clinton, the Washington Post reported.

"I'm elated," Winters' son, Jimmy, of Miami, was quoted by the Post as saying. "This is an example of a man who did something for his friends that he thought was the right thing to do, and it had nothing to do with race or religion or money." (dpa)