Former Utusan Malaysia group chief editor Zainuddin Maidin has confirmed that Musa Hitam fell victim to false allegations during his time as the deputy prime minister.

Zainuddin said the allegations – spread by Anwar Ibrahim, Daim Zainuddin and Sanusi Junid, collectively known as 'AIDS' – had driven a wedge between Musa and then prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad.

The trio had spread rumours that Musa was eyeing the top post in order to fulfil Anwar and Sanusi's own ambitions to become prime minister, as well as Daim's desire to become the hidden “king maker”, according to Zainuddin.

“As the chief editor of Utusan, close to the then deputy prime minister Musa Hitam at that time, I saw for myself the truth to his claims that he was made the sacrificial lamb because Mahathir believed AIDS' false accusations he wished to topple Mahathir as the prime minister.

“It is because of those accusations that he stepped down in 1986, after Mahathir himself brutally confirmed it,” Zainuddin (photo) wrote on his blog today.

Mahathir, he said, had also been uneasy with the fact that Musa often jokingly referred to him as “bomoh” (shaman) during the then deputy prime minister's weekly meetings with newspaper editors.

Zainuddin said the then Berita Harian editor, Ahmad Sebi Abu Bakar often left the meetings early, presumably to report what had transpired to Daim and Anwar.

Fuelled by the belief that his deputy wanted to oust him, Mahathir ordered his officers to ensure that the newspapers stopped using the phrase '2M' to refer to himself and Musa.

This was done to remove all semblance of closeness between the country's top two leaders, and to kill Musa's hopes of becoming prime minister among the public, Zainuddin said.

The dimming of Musa's future in Umno

Zainuddin, a former information minister, said Daim and Anwar's entry into Umno on Mahathir's invitation further dimmed Musa's future prospects in the party.

This was because the duo, along with Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah, were frequently handed important tasks and huge projects, he said.

“A smooth transfer of powers, without any threat to harmony and Umno traditions, could have happened if Mahathir had not brought Anwar and Daim into Umno.

“But if Mahathir had not caught Anwar, PAS may have replaced Umno as the government of Malaysia.

“And if he hadn't brought in Daim, there wouldn't have been the brave, fast, dynamic and radical change in the management of the country's finances, and the development of the Malays in business and trade,” said Zainuddin.

In his book 'Frankly Speaking', Musa had recalled how Mahathir in late 1985 started ranting to the Umno supreme council about someone trying to topple him, without mentioning names.

Musa later found out that "a group called AIDS" had been spreading "negative stories" about him, but he did not take them seriously at the time.

Then in December that year, Musa said, he finally asked Mahathir who was trying to topple him, only for the then prime minister to reply, “You-lah!”

After recovering from the shock of the revelation, Musa said he made up his mind to resign as deputy prime minister, feeling he could no longer serve if he was not trusted.

His resignation, Musa added, was not due to the Memali Incident in 1985, in which he had been blamed for the deaths of 14 alleged religious deviants and four police personnel, nor was it due to differing leadership styles.