Shani Krebs didn’t fall in with a bad crowd – he was the bad crowd. It was a wild life, filled with girlfriends, narrow escapes and drug binges. He was arrested for heroin trafficking and, after a trial, was sentenced to death. He was 34. Shani’s sentence was commuted to 100 years, and thus begun the greatest challenge of his life. The first hurdle was to survive in one of the toughest prisons imaginable: the random violence, the appalling diet, and the filth and diseases. Shani not only survived, he eventually rose to command significant respect within the prison system. The second was to stay off drugs after years of addiction. The third was nurturing a long-neglected spiritual side, which he found through his art and exploring his Jewish faith. After serving 18 years – the longest-serving Westerner in a Thai prison – he stepped off a plane at OR Tambo in 2012.