DHAKA: Two elderly Bangladeshi newspaper editors were sentenced in absentia Thursday over a plot to kill the prime minister’s son, charges their supporters say were confected to punish them for supporting the country’s opposition.

Shafik Rehman, 88, and Mahmudur Rahman, 70, were convicted along with three others in what authorities said was a thwarted conspiracy to kidnap and murder Sheikh Hasina’s eldest child while he was based in the United States a decade ago. All five were sentenced to seven years in jail, prosecutor Abdur Rahman Khan Kazal told AFP.