Demetris and Maro Philippides, the elderly couple who died in the wildfire which tore through the Limassol district last month, “ignored instructions” given to them by the police, leading to their death, the force’s chief Themistos Arnaoutis said on Friday.

He told a joint session of the House agriculture, environment, and interior committees held in light of the fire that the couple had driven out of the village of Silikou, where they lived, at 7.55pm on July 23, and that they were told by the police to drive northwards towards the village of Ayios Mamas.

Instead, he said, they drove southwards towards Alassa, on a road which was closed by the police at 8.05pm.

Asked by House interior committee chairman and Akel MP Aristos Damianou to clarify “whether the police’s position is that our two fellow people were informed that the road was on fire and ignored that warning”, Arnaoutis said that “we have a statement that they were told where to go”.

Then asked a second time if they were told that the road to Alassa was on fire and ignored that warning, he said “yes, that is our position”.

His comments on the deaths of the elderly couple provoked a reaction from some MPs, with Damianou saying later on Friday that the remark was “the greatest sign of callousness”, and both “sad” and “unacceptable”.

Fellow Akel MP Yiorgos Loukaides said that Arnaoutis has “led us to understand that the two dead people may have been responsible for their own deaths”, while Diko leader Nicholas Papadopoulos called for those present to “leave the dead out of the discussion”.

Then, House president Annita Demetriou called for MPs and others present to “preserve the seriousness” of the session and “human respect”.

Arnaoutis’ reference to instructions given to the two people who were killed was not present in the report submitted by the police to President Nikos Christodoulides last month, instead only noting that a civil defence officer had “spotted a vehicle on fire” and “noticed an individual” inside.

That civil defence officer, the report stated, informed the police, who dispatched officers to attend the scene.

The civil defence’s own report made no reference to the fact that two people died.

Arnaoutis also told the House that the investigation carried out by the United States’ Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) found that there was no evidence that the fire had been started maliciously.

He said a total of “13 pieces of information have been investigated”, and that investigations into the fire are ongoing, but did not provide any further details, other than to add that the two cigarette butts recovered by the ATF team had been handed over to the police “for scientific examinations”.

The couple were found dead in their car at around 9pm on the day the fire broke out, with their niece Anna Avraam saying at their funeral the following week that the government had failed to protect the public before and during the fire.

“Where exactly were you ready?” she asked, addressing members of the government who had attended the funeral.