Leo Sisti

executive director IRPI

Leo Sisti is the executive director of the Investigative Reporting Project Italy, a centre for investigative journalism based in Italy. He holds a law degree from the University of Pavia and writes for the Italian weekly L’Espresso.

Since 2009 Sisti has also been a contributing reporter of the new Italian daily Il Fatto Quotidiano. During the nineties Sisti covered the so-called ‘clean hands’ investigation and was awarded the prestigious Il Premiolino journalism prize. Sisti has co-authored seven books, two of which were on bankruptcy-related scandals involving the Vatican (1982, 1991). The other five books were mainly on corruption in Europe (1995), corruption in Italian football (1998), on the alleged ties between former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and Cosa Nostra (1997) and on the “mysteries” of the Italian justice system, Processo all’italiana (2012), written with Piercamillo Davigo, a judge of the ‘clean hands’ investigation in the 1990s. In 2004 Sisti wrote his first solo book examining Al Qaeda’s financial dealings. In 2007 Sisti published a book on the Sicilian mafia on the links between a former mayor of Palermo and the “Corleonese” boss of bosses Bernardo Provenzano.

Sisti joined the Washington-based International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) in 2000. With ICIJ he worked on cross-border investigations, three of which were awarded Investigative Reporters and Editors prizes in 2009, 2010 and 2011.

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