WASHINGTON -- A Butler County woman who was detained for three months in Libya in 1987 yesterday received the go-ahead from a federal judge to pursue a lawsuit against the Libyan government, a decision that her lawyer believes might move Libya to settle the suit and serve as a precedent for similar suits against Iran and Cuba.

In the latest chapter in a saga that began when a yacht carrying Sandra Jean Simpson was caught in a storm in the Mediterranean Sea, U.S. District Judge Ricardo M. Urbina rejected Libya's motion that he dismiss the suit brought by Simpson and the estate of her late husband, Dr. Mostafa Karim.

Simpson and Karim were among five passengers on the Carin II, a pleasure craft reputedly once owned by Nazi leader Hermann Goering that was traveling from France to Egypt on Feb. 10, 1987, when it encountered rough weather and sent a distress signal. The craft was taken to the Libyan port of Benghazi for repairs, and the passengers were picked up by a patrol boat.

Instead of releasing the passengers, the government of Col. Moammar Gadhafi held Simpson and three European friends until May 19, when they were released through the intervention of Belgian diplomats. Karim, an Egyptian national, was not allowed to leave for another seven months.

Ordinarily, foreign governments are immune to lawsuits by U.S. citizens under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act. But in 1996, Congress amended the act to allow an exception for lawsuits alleging "torture" or "hostage-taking" against states, like Libya, that have been designated state sponsors of terrorism.

In 2003, a federal appeals court dismissed Simpson's torture claim but sent her claim of hostage-taking back to the district court. In allowing that suit to proceed, Urbina found that it was plausible that Libya might have held Simpson and other Americans as insurance against U.S. air strikes -- even though Libya never explicitly made that connection. Urbina also instructed Simpson to amend her claim to specify particular "causes of action," laws under which she has a claim against Libya.

Her lawyer, Eric C. Sorenson, said yesterday that would not be difficult, but that there was a possibility that Libya would now want to settle the suit.

"This is a big step," said Sorenson, who is also Simpson's brother-in-law. "It's the first contested case under the federal anti-terrorism law that deals with the hostage-taking exception to foreign immunity."

Simpson, a graduate of Pennsylvania's Edinboro State University, was working as a scuba-diving instructor when she was taken into Libyan custody in 1987.

Today, she is remarried to Jim Sorenson, her attorney's brother, and makes her home in Saxonburg, Butler County, although she is now in Egypt.