A staffer at a private bank from Lattakia told me in 2010 that when his brother knocked down a pedestrian in a car accident on a Damascus street he fled the capital for a month while his family attempted to sort out the issue. His family paid money to the family of the deceased. The state was not involved in this as#pect of governance and the brother faced no legal judgment for his crime. Law and justice are realms so weak, corrupt and disin#genuous in the state system that Syrians have rejected them in serious matters; they are forced to govern themselves; they can place no trust in the state.
Actually, this is not so terribly alien to Germans.

The German law books have 15 paragraphs about crimes that will only be prosecuted if the victim demands it.
A further 12 paragraphs are about crimes that are basically the same, but a state attorney can still go after them if (s)he sees a public interest in doing so.
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antragsdelikt

Germans (and people in Germany) are not obliged to report crimes (except the planning of certain crimes) in general (exception; police etc).

We would of course report such a homicide and police would go after the brother until it's believed that it really was an accident, but our legal situation does not demand that anyone reports the crime.