Australian expat Gary Peters, now back in the country after working as a bodyguard for the Gaddafi family, has revealed to the ABC that he still gets paid by a key member of the former Libyan regime.

Mr Peters lived in Canada but was a friend to Moamar Gaddafi's third son, Saadi Gaddafi, and worked as his bodyguard for more than a decade.

He is trying to get back to Canada after being deported for his links to the family and a ruling that he was wilfully blind to the atrocities of the regime.

Saadi Gaddafi, known as a playboy prince, was a professional footballer and more recently during the war was the commandant of Benghazi.

He is the man now accused of giving the orders for the military to target civilian protesters.

But Mr Peters, a former soldier, has a different view of Saadi Gaddafi.

"Very nice guy, very loyal to his friends, intelligent, bit of a character, likes to party," he told 7.30's Hayden Cooper in his first interview since arriving back in Australia last week.

"He'll look after you."

Over the 12 years that he worked for the family, he was welcomed into the inner circle, sharing meals with the extended family including Moamar Gaddafi himself.

He says he did have qualms about meeting the man dubbed the Mad Dog of the Middle East, but "when you get to know him or know of him, he was a family man, he was alright".

'Top dollar'

Mr Peters says he did business with the Gaddafis because there was money to be made.

He says the family pay "top dollar".

"You might have to wait for a bit to get your money but you always get paid."

He estimates the "very, very lucrative" business venture has netted him "a million plus, two million plus" over the past few years.

And he is still being supported by Saadi Gaddafi, the man he helped escape the crumbling ruins of the family's regime.

"The problem is getting money out but when he can, money does come through.

"He helped last week, just to get me by for the next month or so."

'Gary, I need you'

When Moamar Gaddafi's regime fell in 2011, the dictator's family fled Benghazi.

They were helped by Mr Peters, who had received an email from Saadi Gaddafi, reading: "Gary, I need you ... I'm in trouble. S."

Saadi Gaddafi had fled his compound and returned to Tripoli.

Mr Peters says he planned an escape for him, and several other "assistants, secretaries and stuff", across the border to Niger.

He says he drove "fast" to get them out, despite a UN travel ban on Saadi Gaddafi.

"[The trip was] very risky. We left because of the gunfire on his compound while we were inside and things getting thrown over the wall," he said.

"It was time to go."

The extraction was successful but the Australian did not get out unscathed. He was shot at a checkpoint the next day.

"We're in a roadblock waiting to get checked and then a group of gentlemen came at us firing weapons, so we returned," he said.

"Two of us got hurt and then we bugged out."

'Supervising torture'

Saadi Gaddafi remains in Niger, where the Government is leaving him alone, but is now the subject of an Interpol red notice - meaning member countries must arrest him.

Libyan engineering student Faraj Elhadayri, living in Sydney, says many witnesses blame Saadi Gaddafi for inciting troops and foreign mercenaries to violence in February 2011.

"Many people saw him in front of the army and he spoke very [hard] in the local radio against the people," he said.

"And second thing, many people has been captured in protest. They saw him in the prison and he was supervising the torture."

Mr Elhadayri says Saadi Gaddafi's financial support of Mr Peters has to be stopped.

"Everybody knows that Saadi and the Gaddafi family took from the Libyan government about 400 million [dollars], and they're hiding them everywhere," he said.

"So the way to track this money is this guy ... what's he doing now? He's doing nothing, so why is he receiving this money?"

No remorse

The Canadian government believes that by virtue of his position as Saadi Gaddafi's personal bodyguard, Mr Peters was complicit in crimes against humanity perpetrated by the Gaddafi regime.

Mr Peters says he is "just a scapegoat" and he cannot be charged with being complicit in war crimes "because there's no evidence".

"I never saw it," he said.

"I saw the aftermath. But who did it? I don't know.

"I wasn't part of that and as far as I know Saadi didn't order any of that."

The Australian Federal Police questioned Mr Peters upon his return to Australia but will not say whether they were still investigating him.

Mr Peters is now trying to return to Canada to be with his wife and says he has no regrets.

"If I don't help a friend, who's going to help him?" he said.

"That's the way I look at it and I'll do it again. I don't care. It was the right thing to do so I did it."