After 15 years of pretrial proceedings, a military judge at Guantanamo is deciding whether Khalid Shaikh Mohammed's confessions to 9/11 attacks can be used in court. The central question is whether his statements were voluntary after he endured waterboarding 183 times in CIA custody before being transferred to Guantanamo.

Prosecutors claim the defendants voluntarily confessed to their roles, while defense lawyers argue they were broken by torture and solitary confinement. The judge is evaluating the legal principle of "attenuation" - whether there was a clear break between coerced and voluntary statements. Two other defendants' confessions have already been thrown out due to CIA treatment.

Lt. Col. Michael Schrama is reviewing years of testimony and classified evidence before his summer ruling. The decision will determine if the case proceeds to trial after a 25-year legal saga that has cost millions of dollars but produced no convictions for the deadliest terrorist attack in U.S. history.