Chelsea and Mourinho signed Salah for just £11million in January 2014 and he starred for Basel against them in the Champions League.
But competition for places at Stamford Bridge with Oscar, Willian, Andre Schurrle and Eden Hazard meant Salah was unable to play regularly.
And just a year later, Salah left the club and joined Fiorentina as part of the deal for Juan Cuadrado.
Salah would then play for Roma between 2015 and 2017 before returning to the Premier League and making a stunning impact with 44 goals in 52 appearances for Liverpool last season.
Mourinho has received some criticism for not playing Salah more.
But the former Manchester United boss feels the real story hasn’t been truthfully told.
Mourinho told beIN SPORTS: “First of all let’s start with Salah. Because lots of things have been told which are not true.
“For a start people try to identify me as the coach that sold Salah. I am the coach that bought Salah. It’s completely the wrong idea.
“I played against Basel in the Champions League. Salah was a kid at Basel. When I play against a certain team I analyse a team and players for quite a long time. And I fell in love with that kid.
“I bought the kid. I pushed the club to buy him and at the time we already had fantastic attacking players – Hazard, Willian, we had top talent there. But I told them to buy that kid. He was more a winger coming inside than a striker. He was just a lost kid in London.
“He was a lost kid in a new world. We wanted to work him, to become better and better and better. But he was more of the idea of wanting to play and not wait.
“So we decided to put him on loan, in a culture I knew well. Italy. Tactical football. Physical football.
“A good place to play. Fiorentina are a good team to play for without the pressure of playing for the title.
“And we decided that move there. When the club decided to sell him it was not me. I bought him, I did not sell him.