Australian Helped Dictator's Son Flee Country

MONTREAL, KOMPAS.com - A former Australian soldier working as a private security contractor admitted he helped Muammar Gaddafi's son Saadi flee Libya as rebel forces took over Tripoli.

Saadi's longtime bodyguard, Gary Peters, has told Canada's National Post that he was part of a team that drove Gaddafi's third son across Libya's southern border to Niger.

Mr Peters, an immigrant who is not a Canadian citizen but has permanent resident status, returned to Toronto in September with an untreated bullet wound to his left shoulder that he suffered when the convoy was ambushed after crossing back into Libya.

'I'm not a mercenary,' Mr Peters told the Post, which said his account had been verified by several sources.

'I work for a person in particular, have done for years, for close protection. When we go overseas, I don't fight. That's what a mercenary does. Defend? Yes. Shoot? Yes. But for defence, for my boss, and that's what happened. The convoy got attacked and two of us got hit.'

Mr Peters said he had provided security services to members of the Gaddafi family since 2004, and continued to do so during NATO's campaign to oust the late dictator.

Though he worked mostly for Saadi, he also guarded Gaddafi's other sons, Saif al-Islam and Hannibal, and said he had escorted Hannibal and his sister Aisha from Libya to Algeria in a convoy.

Mr Peters met Saadi while serving in the Australian Army when Gaddafi's son was visiting the 2000 Olympics in Sydney and Mr Peters was assigned to protect him.

After moving to Canada in 2002, Mr Peters said he worked 'on and off' for the next two years as a close protection operative for the security contractor Blackwater USA, which was banned from Iraq following a fatal 2007 shooting and later renamed Xe Services.

Although Canada has enacted UN sanctions imposing an arms embargo on Libya, and frozen the assets of Saadi and other Gaddafi family members, Mr Peters has not been charged with a crime. 'I broke no laws,' he said. 'But they have to investigate, which is fine.'

Mr Peters, who said he had spoken to Saadi by telephone since returning to Canada and planned to return to Niger this weekend, defended his boss.

'If he was a mass murderer, then I wouldn't work for him,' Mr Peters said. 'The man's a gentleman, non-violent.'

Mr Peters said other members of Saadi's security team were from Australia, New Zealand, Iraq and Russia and had all previously served as special forces.

He warned the fight in Libya was far from over, even after Gaddafi's death.

'Don't believe it's going to settle down because there are still three brothers there that are very, very angry. And three brothers that have a lot of money,' Mr Peters said.

'And they've still got that money. We just purchased, brand new, three Land Rovers, bullet-proof.

'We paid cash for them. That means there's money around.'