An outspoken Dutch MP who fled to the United States in fear of her life after fiercely criticising Islam was understood to be back in the Netherlands yesterday, because The Hague has stopped paying for her bodyguards abroad.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a Somali refugee who quit as an MP in a row over her immigration status, which brought down the last Dutch Government, was said to be in hiding while she tries to arrange personal protection.

Ms Hirsi Ali, 37, was given round-the-clock security after Theo van Gogh, the director of a film that criticised Islam’s attitude to women and on which she collaborated, was murdered in 2004 by a Muslim fanatic. A note was left on the knife in his chest claiming that she would be next.

Dutch Green MPs called for an emergency parliamentary debate yesterday on how the Government planned to organise her protection. It was earlier revealed that €3.5 million (£2.4 million) had been spent on Ms Hirsi Ali’s security over the past three years. Sybrand van Haersma Buma, the security spokesman for the ruling Christian Democrat Party, said that the Government had agreed to pay for security only during Ms Hirsi Ali’s first year abroad because of the “extraordinary circumstances” surrounding her departure.

“It was a temporary measure,” he said on Dutch television. “The responsibility for her security should be taken on by the US Government.” He argued that it was impossible for the Netherlands to know what level of security would be appropriate while she was in another country.

Ms Hirsi Ali, who renounced Islam in 2002, became a target for death threats through her increasingly provocative attacks on the faith, including the suggestion that if the prophet Muhammad were alive today he would be considered a paedophile. The film she made with Mr Van Gogh, Submission, projected verses of the Koran on to the beaten bodies of Muslim women.

She wrote of the attacks on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon in 2001: “This was not just Islam, this was the core of Islam . . . [this was] not frustration, poverty, colonialism, or Israel: it was about religious belief, a one way ticket to Heaven.” The revelation that she lied about details on her asylum application led to a move to annul her Dutch citizenship last year. Ms Hirsi Ali eventually had her passport reinstated but decided to emigrate to the US to work at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think-tank in Washington. She wrote a bestselling book, Infidel.

In an interview with The Washington Post in March, she said that she would like to stay in the US. She added: “I’d like to buy a place . . . try being an average American.”

Of the controversy surrounding her she has said: “The media are still lapping it up: a black woman who criticises Islam. One day the magic around me will disappear.”

Wim Kok, a spokesman for the Dutch antiterror unit responsible for Ms Hirsi Ali’s protection, said that, for security reasons, he could not confirm or deny whether she was in the Netherlands. She is reported to have no bodyguards. The American Enterprise Institute would not comment on her whereabouts.

‘A woman is a slave’

In Infidel, Ms Hirsi Ali wrote: “A woman . . . is like a pious slave. She honours her husband’s family and feeds them without question or complaint. She never whines or makes demands of any kind. She is strong in service, but her head is bowed. If her husband is cruel, if he rapes her and then taunts her about it, if he decides to take another wife, or beats her, she lowers her gaze and hides in tears. And she works, hard, faultlessly. She is a devoted, welcoming, well-trained work animal.”

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