She had wondered for years how her son died. Then the confession came on YouTube.

“Chopped into pieces,” said a former hit man, who told a makeshift courtroom that he was obeying orders from the ex-president.

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Similar endeavors in the past failed to reach villagers outside of cities, who often lacked electricity, said Jamie O’Connell, co-founder of the International Professional Partnerships for Sierra Leone, a nonprofit that assisted the West African nation with its early-2000s probe into war crimes.

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“That may be accelerating the community dialogue around these things,” said O’Connell, who lectures about transitional justice at Stanford University. “It can also amplify and sharpen emotions.”