In May, the court issued death sentences for four men: the shrinekeeper who appeared to have sealed Farkhunda’s fate with his accusation and three other men in the mob believed to have been among her most vicious assailants. That trial also resulted in eight other defendants receiving prison terms of 16 years.

But this week — most likely on Wednesday, although the timing is unclear — an appellate court overturned those death sentences in a proceeding that Farkhunda’s advocates have described as secret and possibly the result of political meddling.

The appeals court’s decision “completely undermines the rule of law in Afghanistan, and it completely undermines women’s rights in Afghanistan,” said Kimberley Motley, the lawyer who represented Farkhunda’s family at the trial. “This case presented a wider issue than Farkhunda being murdered, as heinous as that was. This case was about the future of Afghanistan: whether it is going to be a country that accepts mob violence or a country that rejects it.”

Ms. Motley, an American lawyer who practices in Afghanistan, said her understanding was that the appeals court had reduced the death sentences to a term of 20 years in prison. While a number of Afghan officials also said that they believed the death sentences had been reduced to 20 years, there was some question as to whether they had been cut further, a sign of just how opaque the court process had become in this case.

A top official with a governmental human rights commission, Shamsullah Ahmadzai, said that his understanding was that of the four men originally sentenced to die, three had received 12-year sentences, while the fourth received a 10-year sentence. Mr. Ahmadzai, who was also on a governmental commission examining Farkhunda’s death, said that one of the four was a boy younger than 18 who had hit Farkhunda on the head with a rock.

Both Farkhunda’s family and the prosecutor’s office, as well as the defendants, can appeal again, Ms. Motley said.

Ms. Motley criticized the appellate court for behaving in a manner that “was all very secret and hidden.” She said Farkhunda’s family had not even been aware that the appellate court had heard the case, which raises troubling questions.