of the Assyrian Church of the East, and was often mistrusted by his family. The Allied military advisors reported that he schemed against Mar Shimun, by trying to dissuade the Allies to trust the Patriarch. However, after the murder of Mar Shimun by the Iranian Kurdish leader Simko, Agha Petros joined forces with Malik Khoshaba and others in driving Simko from his stronghold at Koynashahr. Later years Petros was the head negotiator for the Assyrians between 1919 and 1923. On July 24, 1923, he took part in the League of Nations Peace Conference in Lausanne, Switzerland, where he approached the Turkish delegation for the resettlement of the Assyrians in and around Hakkâri Province in exchange for the loyalty of the Assyrians. The then secretary/minister of foreign affairs of Turkey, İsmet İnönü who was heading the Turkish delegation at Lausanne was in favor of the resettlement but a telegram received from the central government in Ankara prevented that. During his last years Petros moved near Toulouse, France, where he lived until his death of a cerebral attack at the railway station, on February 2, 1932. Controversies In his book The Cradle of Mankind, life in Eastern Kurdistan W.A. Wigram mentions that Petros was involved in fraudulent acts in British Columbia (Canada), where he resorted to collecting money purportedly for the building of an orphanage in Macedonia. According to some historians he fled the country as the Canadian police was about to arrest him. He was later to be found in Rome where he passed himself off as an Assyrian tribal chief desirous to bring his tribe from the Assyrian Church of the East over to the fold of the Roman Catholic Church (called " Chaldean Catholic Church "). Impressed and grateful for this decision, the Catholic authorities granted him an official decoration. Petros then returned to the Ottoman Empire and displayed his decoration from the Pope to local authorities to ask for a job at an Ottoman Consulate. A job that he did get, as a secretary, and as a Consul in Urmia in 1909. Some historians believe Petros Elia was merely concerned by his own ambition. The Allied military advisors reported that he schemed against Mar Shimun, by trying to dissuade the Allies from trusting him. He was also reportedly mistrusted by the Allies. Lieutenant Gasfield and French Surgeon-Major Caujole have recorded his subordinates' low esteem in their reports. See