Watch: The fine art of criminal investigations
Lieutenant General Mike van Aardt has investigated numerous high-profile crimes in South Africa
This latest East Rand Business Women meeting saw men also attending to listen to Lieutenant General Mike van Aardt provide insight into the world of investigating a crime.
Van Aardt is a renowned member of the SAPS who has investigated many high-profile crimes in South Africa, including the Oscar Pistorius case.
According to van Aardt, there is nothing as high profile as murder, but every crime is treated the same.
“Murder takes place when there’s an intentional killing of one human being by another with malice. When police officers arrive on the scene and it appears to be a murder, they then open a docket directly as murder,” he said.
“For example, in a case where a person has hanged himself, the unnatural death will be investigated as an inquest.
“Every unnatural death is investigated by the police, including murder.
“Culpable homicide is when there’s negligence. For example, when you take out a firearm and the gunshot goes off and you accidentally kill someone. So when we speak about murder there’s intention involved.”
Van Aardt mentioned that there are three types of intentions to kill. They are dolus directus, dolus indirectus and dolus eventualis.
“Dolus directus is when you intend to kill someone and do so. Dolus indirectus is where I aim at you but I accidentally shoot someone else.
“The big word that people got to know about through the Pistorius case is dolus eventualis. It is when the perpetrator objectively foresees the possibility of his act causing death and persists regardless of the consequences.”
Van Aardt spoke about some of the cases he has worked on, with some of them being cold cases, a challenge he sometimes faces in his job.
