Prior to joining DW, Laila, worked as an independent journalist in Africa, Europe and North America. She has reported for Italian broadcaster RAI, France’s TF1, as well as Britain’s ITN news covering European Union affairs, the global financial crisis as well as the controversial topic of migrants. She also recently covered the war crimes trial of former Liberian president, Charles Taylor, in The Hague interviewing the head of Taylor’s defense team, Karim Ahmad Khan.

For 8 years, Laila worked for the Brussels bureau of Associated Press Television. She worked on assignments in the ethnically divided city of Mitrovica in Kosovo, the Middle East as well as covering Kosovo’s declaration of independence in 2008. She has interviewed the head of Zimbabwe’s Movement for Democratic Change, Morgan Tsvangirai, NATO Secretary General, Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, and former U.K. Foreign Minister, David Miliband.

Since 2010, Laila has produced and directed the German Marshall Fund’s behind-the-scenes coverage at the Brussels Forum, interviewing former US Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright, the first female Afghan MP, Fawzia Koofi, and Canadian Defense Minister, Peter MacKay.

Of Moroccan heritage, Laila was born in the Netherlands but relocated to Tangier as a child, where she attended the American School. She graduated from the Netherlands’

LeidenUniversity, where she earned her degree in English literature and linguistics. She completed post-graduate work at the University of Amsterdam in American Studies.

Laila speaks Dutch, Arabic, English, Italian, German, and French.