WASHINGTON - US President George W. Bush granted a rare posthumous pardon Tuesday to a man jailed nearly 60 years ago for illegally helping Israel during its 1948 war of independence.
Charles Winters was sentenced to 18 months in prison and fined 5,000 dollars in 1949 for helping provided Israel with two B-17 "Flying Fortress" warplanes that he had converted for use in his Florida fruit business, US officials said.
He was among 19 persons granted pardons Tuesday by Bush ahead of the holidays. A 20th person had his prison sentence commuted. None of the 20 were high-profile figures.
Winter was one of three persons convicted of violating the Neutrality Act by providing the B-17s to Israel, which lacked heavy bombers in their war against Arab forces.
The two others, described by officials as the ringleaders of the operation, were pardoned previously: Al Schwimmer in 2000 by then-president Bill Clinton and Hank Greenspun in 1961 by John F. Kennedy.
The officials said Winters, who died in 1984 at the age of 71, had never asked for a pardon.
The only other case of a posthumous pardon was given by Clinton to Henry Flipper, the first black graduate of the West Point military academy who was unfairly accused of embezzlement.
Others pardoned by Bush Tuesday had been convicted of a variety of relatively minor crimes including drug or firearm offenses, mail fraud, counterfeiting and fraud.
Tuesday`s action brought to 190 the number of people pardoned by Bush during his eight years as president, though his spokesman said other acts of clemency could be announced before he leaves office on January 20.
Other presidents have made far greater use of their powers of pardon.
According to the Office of the Pardon Attorney, Clinton granted 396 pardons -- 218 of which were issued in the last months of his presidency -- and 40 commutations. Ronald Reagan provided 393 pardons and 13 commutations while Jimmy Carter granted 566 pardons.
Bush`s father, George H.W. Bush, on the other hand granted only 74 pardons.
Among high-profile individual still hoping for a Bush pardon is media tycoon Conrad Black, currently serving a six-and-a-half-year jail term for fraud and obstruction of justice.
Others include John Walker Lindh, the so-called "American Taliban," as well as former Republican lawmaker Randy "Duke" Cunningham and Louisiana`s former Democratic governor Edwin Washington Edwards, both implicated in corruption and bribe cases.
In July, Bush commuted the prison term for I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, a former White House aide who received a 30-month prison term for perjury, obstruction of justice and making false statements to investigators in a CIA leak case. Bush could still grant him a full pardon, though officials say Libby has not requested one.