THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) – Somali-born lawmaker Ayaan Hirsi Ali, whose citizenship came under question because she falsified information on her asylum application in 1992, will retain her Dutch nationality, the immigration minister said yesterday.

The reversal came six weeks after Immigration Minister Rita Verdonk said Hirsi Ali’s naturalization was invalid because she gave a false name and birth date when she came to the Netherlands, escaping an arranged marriage.

Verdonk’s decision created an uproar in parliament, which demanded that she find a way out of the embarrassment.

Hirsi Ali, 36, is one of the country’s foremost critics of fundamentalist Islam. She quit as a lawmaker immediately after Verdonk said she would make no exception in the rules for her friend and political colleague because Ali had lied about her name.

But yesterday, Verdonk found a loophole, saying in a letter to parliament that it had been legitimate for Hirsi Ali to use her grandfather’s name rather than her father’s name, Hirsi Magen. Her naturalization was completed in 1997, and she became a member of parliament in 2002.

“Taking everything into consideration, I have reached the conclusion that the naturalization decision of 1997 identifies Ayaan Hirsi Ali sufficiently and thus she did indeed correctly receive Dutch citizenship,” Verdonk said in the letter.

“Had it not been for the investigation I carried out, the facts that were decisive in reaching this conclusion would not have come to light,” she said.

Verdonk had come under sharp criticism for annulling Hirsi Ali’s citizenship just days after a television programme documented her background.

Hirsi Ali said at the time she was astounded by the decision, since she had acknowledged publicly before accepting a parliament seat that she had falsified her personal details.

Hirsi Ali was in the United States yesterday looking for a house in the Washington DC area, where she has accepted a position with the conservative think tank the American Enterprise Institute, beginning in September.

Her lawyer, Britte Bohler, said the former legislator was “happy the uncertainty is finally over. She also is happy there are no more questions about her Dutch citizenship”.

In a statement released simultaneously with Verdonk’s letter, Hirsi Ali said she regretted the confusion over her name, and that her admission of lying had been a mistake since the name she adopted was legitimate.

“The name Ali does actually belong to me. The name Ayaan Hirsi Ali is a name that, according to Somali law and custom, I can use,” she said. “My statement that I lied about my identity does not reflect reality.”

The solution to the problem came out of a meeting late Monday of key Cabinet members at the resident of Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende.

Hirsi Ali became internationally known when filmmaker Theo van Gogh was murdered in November 2004 by a Muslim radical incensed by van Gogh’s film “Submission”, for which she wrote the script.

“Submission” was a fictional study of abused Muslim women, with scenes of near-naked women with Quranic texts engraved on their flesh. Many Muslims considered it blasphemous.

She has lived under the constant watch of bodyguards since Van Gogh’s murder.