By Wendy Anders

EFE reported today on a CNN report that John Hinckley, the man who tried to assassinate U.S. President Ronald Reagan on March 30, 1981 – wounding the president and three other people in the process – was released from a Washington, D.C., psychiatric hospital on Saturday.

Hinckley was released from St. Elizabeth’s Hospital, CNN said,

Attorney Barry Levine, who had earlier confirmed that his client would be freed on Saturday morning, said in a statement that “the mental health system and the judicial system worked, and worked well.”

In July, a federal judge had ruled that the 61-year-old Hinckley no longer constitutes a threat to himself or others and would be permitted to live full-time with his elderly mother at her Williamsburg, Virginia, home, albeit under a strict set of conditions.

Starting in the 1990s, Hinckley has been allowed to make longer and longer supervised visits to his mother of up to two-and-a-half weeks, under constant monitoring by the Secret Service, reported EFE.

Hinckley was found not guilty of the crime by reason of insanity, and committed to a psychiatric institution. He said that he tried to kill Reagan in an attempt to impress actress Jodie Foster, over whom he had developed an obsession after seeing her in the film “Taxi Driver.”

The conditions imposed on Hinckley in his new living arrangement include working or volunteering at least three days a week, helping with chores around the house, and continuing to attend regular individual and group therapy sessions.

He may drive within a proscribed radius, but may not drink or use illegal drugs, may not speak with the press, may not search for information about his crimes or victims, and he must receive special permission to have accounts on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube or LinkedIn. After a year, he may be permitted to live alone or with roommates, continued EFE.

Reagan was struck in the chest by one of the half dozen bullets Hinckley fired at him in front of the Washington Hilton Hotel, but he made a quick and full recovery from that wound.

The three other people wounded by Hinckley in the assassination attempt included Reagan’s press secretary James Brady, who was paralyzed in the shooting and died in 2014 from complications of his head wound, Secret Service agent Tim McCarthy and police officer Thomas Delahanty, reported EFE today.

Ronald Wilson Reagan served as the 40th President of the United States from 1981 to 1989. He is best known in Central America and Costa Rica for his involvement in the Iran–Contra affair.

The Iran–Contra affair involved using the proceeds from covert arms sales to Iran during the Iran–Iraq War in the 1980s to fund the Contra rebels fighting against the Sandinista government in Nicaragua, which took over power in a revolution from dictator Anastasio Somoza in July 1979.

The affair became a political scandal in the United States during the 1980s, and the International Court of Justice, ruled that the United States had violated international law and breached treaties in Nicaragua in various ways under Reagan’s presidency.

When Reagan visited Costa Rica on November 17, 1983, to seek support from then-President Luis Alberto Monge in his Contra rebel counter-offensive, he was politely rebuked as Monge reaffirmed Costa Rica’s commitment to permanent non-armed neutrality, reported Teletica, Costa Rica’s Channel 7 television station.