Abu Dhabi: Three men charged with setting up an affiliate of the Lebanon-based Hezbollah group appeared in the Federal Supreme Court on Monday.

Prosecutors charged the three Lebanese men with setting up an office of the Shiite Islamist militant group in the UAE and carrying out commercial, economic and political activities without licences, the court presided over by judge Falah Al Hajeri heard.

Lawyers of the defendants, Canadian Lebanese S.N.G., 62; and Lebanese A.A.Q., 66, and A.E.Q., 30, asked for time to study the documents of the case and judge Al Hajeri adjourned the hearing to February 15.

The General Prosecutor stated that the three men “established and managed an international group belonging to Lebanon-based Hezbollah without official permission or licences”.

In November 2014, the UAE branded 80 groups as terrorist organisations, including Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood and Daesh in line with a federal law on combating terrorism. Hezbollah also figured in the list, including Shiite Hezbollah in the Gulf states and brigades with the same name in Iraq.

The list includes Muslim Brotherhood’s local and regional affiliates, as well as Al Qaida-linked groups operating in different parts of the region.

Several brigades fighting on both sides in the Syrian conflict along with Islamist groups in Libya, Tunisia, Mali, Pakistan, Nigeria’s Boko Haram as well as Afghanistan’s Taliban account for the bulk of the list.

The move followed a similar step taken by Saudi Arabia in March 2014.

In another case, 21 out of 23 people charged with forgery and links to terrorist groups had their cases adjourned to March 7 to retain lawyers for the defendants. The Emirati and Yemeni defendants claimed their names were mistakenly registered in the indictment. They demanded that their names be corrected in the court documents.

In the third case, a man charged with setting up and running social media accounts to promote the ideology of terrorist groups and providing a terrorist organisation with information about the country had his hearing adjourned to March 14, when a verdict will be given.

The Emirati defendant’s lawyer told the court the man is not criminally responsible because he has a mental disorder that makes him unable to judge the nature or quality of the criminal act or to understand that the act was wrong at the time it was committed. The lawyer presented to the court medical reports and cited the testimonies of witnesses that the man had a mental disorder.

The lawyer said a medical committee proved the man suffered from a mental disorder which exempts him from criminal responsibility. “A thorough legal and psychiatric review determined the defendant’s state, declaring him not criminally responsible for his acts.”

The verdict will be guilty, not guilty, or not criminally responsible on account of mental disorder.

If a person is declared not criminally responsible, chances are he or she will not be released right away. A medical review board will first have to assess the risk that this person poses to public safety. If the board believes that the person poses a significant risk to society, he or she will remain in custody of a hospital designated by the board. Otherwise, the person must be released.