President Nikos Christodoulides said on Saturday denied all knowledge of plans to purchase a new armoured limousine, costing €595,000, for his use, accusing someone in parliament of deliberately leaking the information in an attempt to damage him politically.

“I was informed this morning by the press about this intention to make a purchase. I knew nothing about it,” Christodoulides told journalists.

He said decisions concerning the president’s security were a matter for the competent state services and not for the president himself.

“No president should know about security issues, about how the competent state services decide to proceed in order to safeguard certain matters,” he said.

He added that he was certain the prime ministers of Greece and Israel and the presidents of Egypt and France similarly did not know the details of decisions concerning their security arrangements.

Christodoulides then accused someone in the House of Representatives of deliberately leaking information about the proposed purchase, saying parliament had been the recipient of the relevant information.

“There was certainly a deliberate leak from the House of Representatives, because that was the recipient, as I saw in the reports today, with the aim, apparently, of harming the President of the Republic,” he said.

He warned that such actions damaged the credibility of those involved in public life and predicted the leak would ultimately have a negative impact on those responsible for it.

Christodoulides also said he had himself complained to his associates about security arrangements surrounding his movements.

Recalling one occasion, he said he had used his private car while travelling with his young daughter because he wanted to have a private moment with her as a father.

He said he subsequently received “very serious reprimands” from those responsible for his protection.

“They are responsible not for the security of Nikos Christodoulides, but for the security of the President of the Republic,” he said.

Christodoulides described criticism surrounding the issue as a “populist approach”, saying attempts to use it to damage the president would ultimately have the opposite effect.