The decision to jail two Americans for attacking a tourist in Bermuda may have angered the defendants' families.

But a stream of fellow Americans have written to backing the court ruling.

Rejecting the appeal of Joseph Pontieri and Michael Donovan, Puisne Judge Carlisle Greaves said the defendants had "beaten the stuffing" out of victim Christopher Emanuel.

Mr. Emanuel's girlfriend, Lindsay Walters, yesterday told how the attack marred the vacation of a lifetime in Bermuda and suggested the attackers should stop acting like the victims. Her boyfriend's jaw is now wired shut and he faces a third operation soon.

Commenting at the recent appeal hearing, Mr. Justice Greaves asked: "What prompts anybody to feel so mighty that they can treat another human being like that?"

"How can you reduce another human being to a state of nothingness and then complain the man treated them wrong when he locked them up for three months?"

One of the letters to the , from Dan and Rita Daerth, of Ohio, backed the judge's decision. They said many Americans thought they could do what they wanted ? as long as they said sorry.

"Too many Americans just don't think you should have to take any responsibility for your actions," they wrote in a letter to this newspaper, printed Saturday.

"I was so glad to read that in Bermuda you guys do! That you are actually punished for crimes. Wow!"

They said Mr. Justice Greaves was a man they would "love to have here in America". And they added: "Keep up the good work, keep Bermuda safe, clean and beautiful as it always has been and keep out or jail those ugly Americans!"

Those comments were echoed by New Yorker Leslie Ann Kilian. She said she envied Bermuda's fairness and said the defendants were an "embarrassment to me and my country".

Meanwhile another New Yorker, Pam Carroll, said calls from Donovan's father urging tourists to boycott the Island in the wake of the court case had fallen on deaf ears.

"If Mr. Donovan's father wants to mount a one-man campaign to boycott Bermuda because 'this is the way Bermudians treat tourists', he'd better not knock on my door," her letter stated.

Dawn Williams, of Massachusetts, said it was "absolutely horrific" when tourists represented their countries in such a bad light.

She said she hoped Bermudians realised not all Americans behaved that way, before adding that many felt the sentences were "fitting, if not generous for these two thugs".