A FORMER soldier, mercenary and bikie sympathiser has been accused of exaggerating his military service and wearing medals he isn’t entitled to.

Brad Parfitt has been interviewed extensively on the ABC and in The Australian about his experience as a private security contractor in war-torn Iraq.

He has told of training 22,500 Iraqi police for the US government and of holding the bodies of the dead in his arms in the fight for freedom.

But Mr Parfitt is in the sights of ex-diggers and researchers from the Australian and New Zealand Military Imposters (ANZMI) website who accused him of misrepresenting his service.

In one letter to a Senate committee, Mr Parfitt cited his overseas service in an impassioned argument against a crackdown on outlaw motorcycle clubs.

“I am a returned serviceman and also a private security company owner in the global war on terror,” he wrote. “I watched men die in the name of freedom. I held them in my arms and cried. I had parts of their bodies blown all over me.

“I choose to associate with so called Outlaw Motorcycle Club members for many reasons – don’t take away my freedom – I think I have earnt it.”

According to the ANZMI website, while Mr Parfitt was in the Australian Army from 1977 to 1994, he never served overseas.

It also published a photograph of Mr Parfitt wearing medals he had not been awarded, including the Australian Active Service Medal and Iraq Medal.

Mr Parfitt told The Sunday Mail he did not serve overseas and admitted his letter to the Senate was misleading. “That was incorrect. I should not have said that,” he said.

However he said he was being targeted in an online campaign because of personal disputes with former security contractors.

He hit out at ANZMI as “an anonymous group of people who don’t identify who they are and give no right of reply”.

He said the medal photograph was taken in 2006 as a “subterfuge” to hide his role as a mercenary in Iraq.

After the deaths of two Queensland private security contractors – former police officer Brendan Hurst and former soldier Justin Saint – in Iraq in 2007, Mr Parfitt told media he was managing director and owner of the firm the men worked for, BLP International, until a month before their deaths. The US government had granted the firm a $78 million contract to train Iraqi police in 2004, he said then.

Documents, which appear to bid for security work in Iraq in 2004, falsely attribute Mr Parfitt with experience he never had.

“Mr Parfitt has served in the Elite Special Air Service (SAS) regiment of the Australian Army as an Executive Specialist for 15 years,” read the documents, obtained by The Sunday Mail. “Brad held command positions within Australian state police forces in Special Emergency Response Teams and Counter Terrorist Squads.”

Mr Parfitt yesterday confirmed he had never been in the SAS or in SERT but said the document was a forgery.