Sebastian Rotella
Sebastian Rotella is a reporter at ProPublica. An award-winning foreign correspondent and investigative reporter, Sebastian's coverage includes terrorism, intelligence and organized crime.
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Sebastian Rotella is a senior reporter at ProPublica. An award-winning foreign correspondent and investigative reporter, he worked for almost 23 years for the Los Angeles Times before joining ProPublica in 2010. He covers international security issues including terrorism, intelligence, organized crime, human rights and migration. His reporting has taken him across the Americas and Europe, and to the Middle East, South Asia and North Africa.
In 2020, Sebastian was part of the ProPublica team whose coverage of the pandemic and the CDC was named a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for public service. The Association of Health Care Journalists gave that coverage the Award for Excellence in Health Care Journalism in the investigative category.
In 2016, he was co-writer and correspondent for Terror in Europe, a Frontline documentary that was a finalist for the Investigative Reporters and Editors broadcast/video award. In 2013, his Finding Oscar investigation with This American Life won a Peabody Award, a Dart Center Award, and two awards from the Overseas Press Club. In 2012, he was recognized with Italy’s Urbino Press Award for excellence in American journalism. His A Perfect Terrorist investigation of the Mumbai attacks (with Frontline) was nominated for an Emmy, and the online version of the story got an Overseas Press Club Award in 2011.
In 2006, he was named a Pulitzer finalist for international reporting for his L.A. Times coverage of terrorism and Muslim communities in Europe, which won the German Marshall Fund’s senior award for excellence in European reporting. He was part of a team whose coverage of al-Qaida received an Overseas Press Club award and finalist honors for Harvard University’s Goldsmith Prize for Investigative Reporting in 2002. In 2001, he won Columbia University’s Maria Moors Cabot Prize for his career coverage of Latin America. His work in Latin America also won honors from the Overseas Press Club, Inter-American Press Association and the American Society of Newspaper Editors.
At the L.A. Times, Sebastian served as a correspondent at the Mexican border, in South America and in Europe. His border reporting inspired two songs on Bruce Springsteen’s album The Ghost of Tom Joad (1995).
Sebastian is the author of three novels: Rip Crew (2018), The Convert’s Song (2014), and Triple Crossing (2011).He is also the author of Twilight on the Line: Underworlds and Politics at the U.S.-Mexico Border (1998). He speaks Spanish, French and Italian. He is a graduate of the University of Michigan, studied at the University of Barcelona, and was born in Chicago.
Support for Mumbai Terror Group Lands Chicagoan 14-Year Prison Term
Tahawwur Rana, 52, had been convicted in 2011 on two counts of material support of terrorism for aiding Pakistan’s Lashkar-i-Taiba militant group and of a plot to attack a Danish newspaper.
Although a Fugitive, Accused Guatemalan War Criminal Hasn't Run Far
ProPublica’s reporting last year about the search for perpetrators of the Dos Erres masscare led to the discovery that an ex-colonel who is a leading suspect had lived openly in an upscale Guatemala City neighborhood.
The New Border: Illegal Immigration's Shifting Frontier
As the net flow of immigrants from Mexico nears zero, violent and impoverished Central American countries have emerged as the fastest-rising source of illegal immigrants to the U.S. Mexico's southern border with Guatemala — a hotbed of smuggling — highlights the challenges of managing immigration in the years ahead.
How an Accused Guatemalan War Criminal Won U.S., Canadian Citizenship
Jorge Vinicio Sosa Orantes denies any role in the slaughter of 250 villagers at Dos Erres in 1982, but investigators say he concealed his background as an army commando and manipulated the immigration system.
Como un Presunto Criminal de Guerra Logró Hacerse Ciudadano en Estados Unidos y Canadá
Jorge Vinicio Sosa Orantes niega cualquier participación en la masacre de 250 campesinos en Dos Erres en 1982, pero los investigadores dicen que escondió su pasado como comando militar y manipuló el sistema.
Guatemalan Massacre Survivor Wins Political Asylum in U.S.
As a boy, Oscar Ramírez Castañeda was abducted by an officer in the squad that conducted one of the worst massacres in Guatemala’s civil war.
Immigration Charges For Accused Commando In Dos Erres Massacre
Jorge Vinicio Sosa Orantes had become a U.S. citizen while allegedly concealing his military service and involvement in the infamous 1982 attack that left more than 250 people dead in a remote Guatemalan village.
U.S. Government Pressures Pakistan on Mumbai Terror Group
Treasury Department issued an order against eight leaders of Lashkar-e-Taiba that prohibits Americans from doing business with them and freezes assets.
Militant Reaffirms Role of Pakistan in Mumbai Attacks
U.S. and Indian officials say weeks of interrogating Zabiuddin Ansari yielded new evidence that Pakistani intelligence officers helped plan and direct the 2008 terror onslaught that cost six Americans and 160 others their lives.