Nenu Pace, the 63-year-old man who went missing on Tuesday only to be found alive and well on Sunday afternoon, opted to disappear to protest over a number of injustices he claims to have suffered over the years.

Speaking to this newspaper, Mr Pace also recounted talking to several police officers, travelling from place to place and even attending the St Helen Feast in Birkirkara while the police were urging the public to come forward with any information about him.

The latest in a series of grievances which led Mr Pace to go incommunicado was a burglary in his farm in Hax-Xluq, limits of Siggiewi. The culprits made off with a substantial amount of tools and assorted equipment, worth at least €8,500, and largely destroyed what they did not steal.

But there had also been several thefts in the past, a protracted dispute with a neighbour over the boundaries of their lands – which, he feels, was unfairly resolved in court – as well as frequent, apparently spurious, police reports filed against him.

Last Friday, Mr Pace’s son David had told this newspaper that he feared that his father had sought to confront the people who they believe are responsible for the break-in. When he had last seen him on Tuesday, his father had told him that he would be talking to the police after being dissatisfied with their reaction to the theft.

But no such confrontation took place, although Mr Pace confirmed his son’s hypothesis on the culprits, questioning how a family ostensibly surviving on unemployment benefits could afford to rent a field and several storage sites.

Instead, Mr Pace spent last week travelling long distances on foot, and sleeping rough in the outskirts of Dingli.

Hiding in plain sight

Mr Pace left home, not to return for days, shortly after his son informed him of the police’s response to his statements on the burglary, which had angered him.

He first walked to the police compound at Ta’ Kandja, a relatively short distance away from his departure point in Qrendi, only to find it closed.

The last confirmed sighting of Mr Pace was at Hal Farrug Road, where he sought to talk to construction magnate Charles Polidano ic-Caqnu, an acquaintance. Mr Polidano was overseas, but Mr Pace met his brother Paul and a number of other persons he knew.

Mr Pace’s next stop, that same day, was the Labour Party headquarters in Hamrun: he is seeking to meet Prime Minister Joseph Muscat over the issues concerning the Siggiewi site.

He was reported missing the next morning. But Mr Pace did not go out of the way to avoid being spotted: rather the opposite.

While missing, Mr Pace walked through main roads, deliberately moving past security cameras. When people appeared to be looking at him, he made sure that they would get a good look.

He also estimates that he passed by some 150 police officers during the five-day period, and even briefly spoke to some of them – but none appear to have recognised him.

Finding water proved to be a problem, one compounded by the summer heat. Eventually, he said, he opted for a more direct approach and asked passersby to provide him with water, expressing gratitude to those who helped him when he looked worse for wear.

On Sunday, he even went to the St Helen feast in Birkirkara, at one point stopping by the Labour Party club in Hamrun to drink tea. He later headed to Attard, buying a snack and a drink at the San Anton Gardens.

He was eventually spotted by an acquaintance, and the police and his family were made aware of his whereabouts. His son found him on the road leading from Zebbug to Rabat, close to the speed cameras, shortly before the police did.

Mr Pace said that he did not inform his family of his intentions because he felt that they would stop him if he did, and because he felt that he had to fight his case on his own.

He refused medical treatment when he was found, and was incensed at being given a referral to the Psychiatric Department at Mater Dei Hospital.

“Patient well orientated to time, place and person but showing some obsessive ideas about dealings on home front,” the referral’s author wrote in their observations.

One-man protest against injustices

As explained above, Mr Pace’s grievances mainly concern his land in Siggiewi, which he had acquired some thirty years ago.

He said that the person owning the adjacent land had also made an offer for it, but that he had offered a better price. He subsequently made a number of offers to Mr Pace, but none were deemed satisfactory.

Issues between the two escalated over the years, particularly when his neighbour carried out construction works which, he insists, illegally extended over his land, specifically over a small private lane.

But he lost the case, despite the extensive documentation he provided to the courts to show the lane in question was part of the site he had acquired. The courts, however, noted that the Agriculture Department’s files showed that the lane belonged to his neighbour.

Adding insult to injury were a number of thefts, as well as a number of police reports filed against him, stating that people appeared to be blaming him for everything that happened on site. In a recent incident, a broken window brought the police to his door, “terrifying my wife and my youngest son,” but the incident appears to be linked to a theft that took place.

These reports were so frequent, he said, that they led him to avoid the site.

He is now awaiting a reply from the prime minister in a bid to have the government look into the evidence backing his case, pointing out that several requests to the previous government had gone unheeded.