However, the exiled Imperial court also regarded the exiled "Abune" Kerrilos as having first collaborated with the enemy and then abandoned his flock. At the eve of Emperor Haile Selassie's return to Ethiopia, the Coptic ecclesiastical authorities suggested that the current Abuna, Kerrilos accompany the Emperor on his entrance into Ethiopia; the offer was declined and the Ichege selected instead. As Margary Perham notes, "The photographs of that dramatic moment when the Emperor stepped across the frontier in the wild region of the Upper Dinder and unfurled his flag, show the Ichegé, a fine figure of a man in his flowing black ceremonial robes, standing beside him."[2]