Two American thugs jailed for attacking a tourist in Bermuda were today told ? you?re not the victims.

Christopher Emanuel?s broken jaw has been wired shut and his face left permanently scarred after fellow cruise ship passengers Joseph Pontieri and Michael Donovan ?beat the crap out of him? on Front Street.

Mr. Emanuel?s girlfriend, Lindsay Walters ? speaking for the first time about the assault ? last night said her partner could have been killed in the brutal two-man ambush.

Pontieri and Donovan were jailed for three months for carrying out the attack. The sentences provoked outrage from both men?s stunned families, who said the punishment was over the top.

Donovan?s father, Thomas, urged tourists to boycott Bermuda and said the defendants would have been treated more fairly in ?red China?.

But Ms Walters, told the culprits were lucky they were not facing a longer stretch behind bars.

The Arizona resident also vowed to return to Bermuda with her boyfriend next year ? so they could personally thank Police for the ?wonderful? way they handled the case.

And despite her boyfriend?s ordeal during the family vacation, she is telling ?everyone to go to Bermuda? because the justice system keeps it safe for tourists.

Ms Walters, who welcomed letters to from Americans backing the court?s verdict, added: ?These guys are acting like they are the victims, saying they could lose their homes and jobs.

?Poor them ? they have to be in jail for three months. Chris will be out of work for two to three months and he won?t get any sick pay.

?He could lose his home and his job. If it?s a long-term injury, his job could be in jeopardy.?

Mr. Emanuel has undergone two operations since the beating, Ms Walters revealed. He is due to go under the knife a third time soon.

Four metal plates and screws have been fitted in his jaw, which is now wired shut. He can move his lips but can barely communicate and his liquid-only diet has to be consumed through a straw.

He has lost 30 pounds and although the pain is easing since the beating earlier this month, he is still on heavy pain-killing medication.

Ms Walters said her boyfriend, 38, now has a permanent two-inch scar cutting through one eyebrow.

The attack also left him with two black eyes and she recalled that afterwards ?his whole face looked like he had three chins?.

Medical costs could run to $30,000, she added, and there was no guarantee her boyfriend?s job as a wine salesman would foot the bill. Responding to Thomas Donovan?s claims the sentences were too harsh and a hefty fine would have been more appropriate, Ms Walters, 26, said: ?We think three months is nothing. One year would have been great.

?They are acting like Bermuda is the worst place in the world; we think it?s wonderful. We are telling everyone to go to Bermuda. They are keeping it safe for tourists. This is how it should be handled. The Police were wonderful.?

The magistrate who sentenced the defendants told them tourists deserved the same legal protection as locals. And a judge subsequently threw out an appeal bid by the two men, who admitted causing grievous bodily harm and apologised to the victim in court. Ms Walters, a real estate worker, added: ?We will be back next year. We want to go back and say thank you to the cops for helping us.?

Asked how the couple felt towards the two attackers, she replied the couple were ?angry, upset, confused and hurt?.

She added: ?We can?t even believe it happened. Your hands are weapons and they could have killed him at the rate they were going, for no reason.?

Ms Walters said the attackers were ?really muscular? and said her partner was not strong enough to handle the two of them. ?If you are strong enough to break somebody?s jaw, it could have been far worse if they had hit him somewhere else in the head. They did not realise their own strength.?

Before the beating Ms Walters said herself, her boyfriend and her boyfriend?s parents, were having a ?wonderful, wonderful time? in Bermuda.

?We rented little scooters and we were having the vacation of our lives until it happened.

?The people were among the nicest we have met. From the moment we got off the ship, it was beautiful.?

She claimed the attack happened following a confrontation in Splash nightclub, after Mr. Emanuel warned the defendants to stop harassing his girlfriend.

Ms Walters said they left because of this unwanted attention and were about half way back to the cruise ship docked at Hamilton when Pontieri, 29, of Staten Island, and Donovan, 34, of New Jersey, ?came out of nowhere?.

?They basically beat the crap out of him,? she said, recalling the five-minute assault. ?He had a broken jaw, a broken rib and two black eyes. They were big guys. He was on the ground and they were kicking him. I couldn?t do anything.?

Ms Walters praised the response of Police, with detectives quickly taking statements and tracking down the culprits while Mr. Emanuel was treated at hospital. ?They handled it really well,? she said.

She was less impressed with medical treatment on the . ?They handled it horribly,? she said.

?We had to wait 15 minutes for a nurse. When she arrived Chris was saying ?my jaw is broken? and she was trying to clean up the cuts. She wouldn?t call the hospital and said we would have to wait until morning.?

Ms Walters said that when a doctor inspected Mr. Emanuel next morning he told him to go straight to hospital, where they faced a six-hour wait for an X-ray to confirm the jaw break.