The governor of Oruzgan Province could not be reached for comment on Monday.

The woman, Bibi Aisha, came to national attention when Time magazine used a photo of her on its cover in August 2010, with the suggestion that this was what would happen to women if the West left Afghanistan. A child bride, Aisha (Bibi is an honorific; Aisha asked that her family name be withheld) had fled her arranged marriage to a Taliban fighter, but was captured and returned to the village where her husband, father-in-law and two brothers-in-law cut her nose and ears off after getting approval from the local Taliban mullah, said Aisha’s father, Mohammedzai, who was interviewed by telephone on Monday.

He added that Mr. Sulaiman was one of the people who held down his daughter while her husband cut her. The mutilation took place in Chora, a remote area of Oruzgan Province. Left for dead, Aisha fled to the safety of a women’s shelter in Kabul run by the advocacy group Women for Afghan Women, which publicized her plight a year later.

“The man they let out, he was Aisha’s father-in-law,” said Mr. Mohammedzai, his voice cracking as he spoke. “He was there at the time when they chopped off her nose and did the cruelty to her. He was one of the culprits and should have been punished, but the government released him.”

“We don’t know who released him,” he said. “We don’t know at all. It’s either government weakness or our weakness. We don’t have money to pay the government and we don’t have someone in the government to support us.”

The other perpetrators have not been apprehended because the area is controlled by the Taliban and the police cannot enter it, the police have said. Aisha’s husband, Quadratullah, who is a Taliban commander, fled to Pakistan or goes back and forth, according to women’s rights advocates who have tracked the case.