Cypriot president says he has ‘nothing to fear’ over corruption allegations

The Cypriot president, Nikos Christodoulides, has said he has “nothing to fear” over a scandal that has forced the resignations of his chief of staff and his wife from a leadership role of a major charity.

As allegations of high-level corruption swirled days after the island assumed the rotating EU presidency, officials insisted the country had been the victim of “hybrid warfare”. The incriminating claims, implicating the president and first lady in a cash for access network, were made in a video uploaded on X.

Breaking his silence four days after the video went viral, Christodoulides, who has faced mounting pressure from coalition partners, put on a brave face as he protested his innocence.

“In such moments of crisis any leader, when his hands are clean, must be calm,” he told reporters on Monday. “I am here. I am publicly taking a position. I have nothing to fear.”

It was, he said, important that “foreign states and the European Union, itself,” had weighed in with help to source the origins of the 8.5-minute video. The island’s intelligence services and cybersecurity experts are also investigating.

“I call on all the responsible state authorities to use all the tools they have at their disposal to fully investigate this affair,” Christodoulides said.

Posted on the user account of a self-described independent researcher named Emily Thompson, the video caused uproar when it began circulating barely 24 hours after Cyprus launched the opening ceremony of its EU presidency on 7 January.

It starts with its female narrator saying: “He burst on to the presidential scene in 2023 promising to root out corruption after the last government. Two years later, the worst fears of Cypriot citizens have now been confirmed. He hasn’t thrown out the old corrupt methods. They’ve simply evolved.”

Within hours government sources were describing the footage as “malicious and clearly edited”, with officials speaking of a hybrid attack that bore all the hallmarks of an enemy state such as Russia.

In a montage, most of which appears to be secretly filmed, the video depicts aides and allies of Christodoulides, including Giorgos Lakkotrypis, the former energy minister and Charalambos Charalambous, his chief of staff, in conversation with unidentified investors.

Both men are heard saying that access to the president is possible in exchange for cash donations that could be funnelled to a charitable fund assisting children in need headed by the first lady.

In one snippet, Lakkotrypis told his interlocutors over wine that because Christodoulides ran as an independent without the backing of a political party, “sometimes they have to depend on cash” to bypass the €1m cap on campaign funding.

“For someone like Nikos who doesn’t have a party behind them it is not easy for them to find the money,” he said.

In another, the former minister explains how he has enabled a Russian oligarch, with links to a pharmaceutical company on the island, to escape EU sanctions by speaking to the leader. A €75,000 donation, made by the company, “got the attention of the president”, he tells them.

Charalambous, who is the president’s brother-in-law and oversaw his campaign finances, is similarly heard saying that investors could have access to the president if they made a proposal and offer of money. Both men have denied the allegations, saying the comments have been taken out of context and distorted.

After Charalambous announced his resignation on Monday, the president described it as “an act of self confidence” and “not of pressure or guilt”.

The first lady, Philippa Karsera, said she would be stepping down from her position as head of the charity citing the “unrelenting attack” she and her children had been subjected to on social media.

But with Cyprus’s image believed to be tarnished at a time of its greatest visibility on the world stage and parliamentary elections set for May, opposition parties called the resignations too little, too late.

Cypriot society, they said, now wanted answers that would rebuke the corruption charges and assure them a cover-up was not under way.