Marcelle Ninio

Victorine Marcelle Ninio (5 November 1929 – 23 October 2019) was an Egyptian secretary and an Israeli spy who became involved in what was known as the Lavon affair. She served time in an Egyptian jail before she was released and she went to live in Israel.

Life Ninio was born in Cairo in 1929. Her father Ya’acov was Bulgarian and her mother, Fanny, was Turkish. Her father died when she was young and she went to both Catholic and Jewish schools. Ninio joined a Jewish club, but she was more interested in basketball than in Zionism and she was a candidate to join Egypt's Olympic squad.

Israeli President Zalman Shazar met with the released operatives in 1968, (from left to right): Ninio, Philip Nathanson, and Robert Dessa.

After serving seven-year jail sentences, two of the imprisoned operatives (Meir Meyuhas and Meir Za'afran) were released in 1962. Ninio and the rest were freed in February 1968, in a secret addendum to a prisoner-of-war exchange.

In 1971, Prime Minister Golda Meir publicly accepted an invitation to Ninio's wedding to Ely Boger, and spoke with her about her time in prison. The meeting was taken as a sign by censors that more information about the Lavon affair could be released.

Ninio attended Tel Aviv University and learnt Hebrew to add to her fluent Arabic, and the French and English she had learnt at school. Lt. Gen. Moshe Ya’alon recognised her work in 2005 when she, Robert Dassa and Meir Zafran were given a military rank in the Israeli military.

Ninio died in Hod HaSharon in 2019.