Indonesia's Supreme Court has given the green light for the execution of the three bombers after rejecting their last appeal on Thursday.

Mr Brian Deegan's son Joshua was one of the 202 people killed in the Oct 12 blasts on the resort island.

Most of the victims were foreign tourists.

The Indonesian authorities have also convicted more than 30 Islamic militants in the blasts.

'Nothing will return my son to me, his mother, his family and his friends,' Mr Brian Deegan said in an open letter to the Indonesian authorities.

'The execution of a selected few who were responsible for his death and the death and maiming of hundreds more will not cure the pain.'

But the three convicted men can still appeal to the President for clemency, though they have said they will not do so. Their lawyers have vowed to fight the sentences to the end.

Attorney-General Hendarman Supanji declined to speculate when the executions would take place, but told reporters yesterday that the 'process would not be drawn out'.

Mr Deegan, a barrister and a magistrate in his native Australia, said he and Joshua were opposed to the death penalty in all cases.

His letter was released with his permission by the Anti-Death Penalty Asia Network, a regional group that campaigns against state executions.

He said killing the three men - who have shown no remorse and have maintained that their acts were sanctioned under Islam as revenge for the death of Muslims in Afghanistan and elsewhere - risked turning them into martyrs.

He called for the death penalty to be commuted to life imprisonment.

'I see that no good will come from their execution. I see only harm,' he wrote.

'I will not beg for their lives to be spared. But I seek that which I consider more appropriate - a penalty which will serve as a constant reminder to others; a penalty which will not destroy the lives of their families.'

The Bali bombings were carried out by members and associates of Jemaah Islamiah, a local network of mostly Afghan-trained militants.

The group is apparently linked to Osama bin Laden's Al-Qaeda, which provides it with money and some expertise, police and former militants have said.

Since the Bali bombings, Islamic militants have carried out three other major attacks on Western targets in Indonesia.

The last was in 2005, also on Bali, when three suicide bombers killed 20 people in restaurant attacks.

The execution of the three men could trigger a backlash in Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim nation, but most analysts expect any reaction to be small and likely to be limited to a show of solidarity at their funeral.

ASSOCIATED PRESS