A private security contractor and former soldier from Canada has admitted that he had helped Colonel Muammar Gaddafi’s son Saadi flee Libya last month, after Tripoli was captured by rebels.
Gary Peters is president of Can/Aus Security & Investigations International Inc. in Cambridge, Ontario. He is also Saadi Gaddafi’s longtime bodyguard and admitted he was part of a team that drove the late dictator’s third son across Libya’s southern border to Niger, the National Post reports.
Reports suggest that the convoy was ambushed after it had crossed back into Libya and Peters was shot. He returned to Toronto’s Pearson airport in September, bleeding heavily from an untreated bullet wound to his left shoulder.
“I got hurt over there so I come back,” he said, adding that he had been providing security to members of the Gaddafi family since 2004 and had continued to do so throughout the NATO campaign against the dictator.
Although he claimed to have worked mostly for Saadi, he admitted he had also briefly guarded Saif al-Islam and Hannibal.
Before helping Saadi flee to Niger, Peters said he had escorted Hannibal and Gaddafi’s daughter Ayesha from Libya to Algeria in a convoy. His account of working for the Gaddafis was verified by several sources.
“I’m not a mercenary. 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,” he added.
