The Canada-based Australian bodyguard of Saadi Gadhafi, the third son of the late Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi, has surfaced and denied allegations that his client was a mass murderer.

"If he was a mass murderer then obviously I wouldn't work for him. The man's a gentleman, nonviolent. They said that he's the leader of a military unit. Bull****; he's not," Gary Peters told the National Post.

Peters, president of Can/Aus Security & Investigations International Inc. in Cambridge, Ontario, also described Saadi as a "very nice man, very educated, very nice guy. However, don't piss them off. Very revengeful people."

Peters' statement was in reaction to United Nations allegations that Saadi commanded military units that repressed anti-government demonstrators during the uprising against his father's rule. It was these circumstances that prompted the UN to issue a travel ban and asset freeze on Saadi.

Peters said he was among the escorts who drove Saadi in a three-car convoy across the border with Niger, where he is now living in exile. But he denied being a mercenary, saying he was just defending his boss.

"I'm not political. This is my boss; he's also a client, also a friend," Peters told the National Post. "It's difficult, but you have your own principles too, right? My morals say that I've got to stand by him."

Peters and the other escorts who brought Saadi to Niger waged a gunfight with armed men when they returned to Libya and he was wounded. He immediately went to Tunisia and from there flew to Germany, where he took a flight back to Toronto. Upon arrival at the airport, he was treated for a gunshot wound in the left shoulder.

Peters, who maintains contact with Saadi in Niger, first met him when the Libyan visited Australia for the 2000 Sydney Olympics. He was assigned to protect Saadi.

In 2002, Peters migrated to Canada and worked for the controversial security firm Blackwater USA. In 2009, he became the bodyguard of Saadi.