Police today moved to raid the Kuala Lumpur office of cartoonist Zulkiflee Anwar Alhaque, better known as Zunar, while he was away in London.

At 10.30 am today, the police seized 149 copies of the cartoonist’s books titled “Conspiracy to imprison Anwar” and “Pirates of the Carry BN” (pic) from his office.

The cartoonist took to twitter to break the news.

“In London. Will have an interview with @BBCNews 4 hours from now, meanwhile in Kuala Lumpur police raid my office & confiscate cartoon books,” he said.

Later, he tweeted asking authorities to file a civil suit against him if the cartoons are deemed defamatory, and added that he opposed the use of the Sedition Act.

It is believed that the raid is linked to the earlier seizure of his books by authorities outside the Palace of Justice Putrajaya, during Anwar’s Sodomy 2 trial last year.

On November 20 last year, Zunar was asked to report at the Dang Wangi Police Station to be investigated under Section 4 (1) (c) of the Sedition Act – which refers to to anyone who “prints, publishes, sells, offers for sale, distributes or reproduces any seditious publication”.

In a media statement today, he said that the police officers who raided the premises were led by ASP Lim Ah Heng from the legal division of the criminal investigation department at the Kuala Lumpur police headquarters.

This is not the first time that Zunar’s books have raised ire from authorities. Several of the cartoonists’ other books have been banned at several different periods, some bans were later lifted.

Zunar, whose cartoons lampoon political figures in Malaysia, has been arrested before and was put behind bars for almost two days in September 2010 for a book titled “Cartoon-O-Phobia”. The High Court had later ruled that the arrest was lawful, despite ordering the police to return the books, drawings and to pay for damages.

The Court of Appeal subsequently struck out his appeal to overturn the High Court ruling. Zunar had then lamented that the judgment showed that the government has “classified that drawing political cartoons in Malaysia is a crime”. -The Rocket