It is for this reason that Indonesian authorities say they want him back on Papuan soil; though Wenda, of course, has a very different opinion as to their motives: "I had no involvement. I wasn't even in the country.They just wanted me in prison." He says that he had no choice but to escape from jail: already doubtful that he was going to be given an fair trial, a number of threats he received there made him fearful for his life, and he finally resolved to go one night when a guard whispered through the bars of his cell: “You are already fed, man” – a reference to the Papuan custom of fattening pigs up before slaughter. “I thought, if I try to escape and they kill me, well that’s ok, because at least I won’t have been killed like an animal.” Shortly afterwards, he broke into a ventilation shaft and escaped over the border into neighbouring Papua New Guinea.