PETALING JAYA: Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad has absolved himself of allegations that he instigated the sacking of then-lord president Tun Mohamed Salleh Abas in 1988.

He told Sinar Harian in an interview published on Saturday (June 9) that he had no hand in sacking Salleh and two Supreme Court judges 30 years ago, but rather, it was the work of the then-attorney general Tan Sri Abu Talib Othman.

Dr Mahathir claimed Abu Talib acted on orders from the Yang di-Pertuan Agong at the time.

"The story is, Salleh made noise in a letter he wrote to the King when the King's home was undergoing renovations, and gave a copy of that letter to all the Rulers.

"The King was angry and asked me to kick him out. I said 'I cannot do that without a tribunal', and he said "I don't care, just do the tribunal' – and so all this happened.

"Why would I create a story to insult the King? If I do not speak, people will think I did it," he said.

Salleh was brought before a tribunal Dr Mahathir convened in 1988, chaired by Tun Hamid Omar, on grounds of misconduct.

In response, Salleh filed a suit to challenge the tribunal's constitutionality, and five Supreme Court judges later granted him an interlocutory order against the tribunal.

The five judges – Tan Sri Azmi Kamaruddin, Tan Sri Eusoffe Abdoolcader, Tan Sri Wan Hamzah Mohamed Salleh, Tan Sri Wan Suleiman Pawanteh and Datuk George Seah – were later suspended.

This rendered Salleh's suit unheard, and the tribunal later removed Salleh, Wan Sulaiman and Seah from office, while reinstating the other three judges.

The Federal Constitution was then amended to divest the courts of "judicial power of the Federation", replacing it with "judicial powers as Parliament granted them".

Dr Mahathir said during the tribunal, Abu Talib did not want to mention the name of the King who wanted Salleh thrown out.

"But in the tribunal, because he did not want to name the King, it was my name that was smeared and dragged through the mud.

"I have said all of this before, but people still say I was the one who got rid of Salleh," he said.

The Yang di-Pertuan Agong from 1984 to 1989 was Almarhum Sultan Iskandar Ibni Almarhum Sultan Ismail Al-Khalidi of Johor.