Ex-US President Ronald Reagan's shooter released from hospital

John Hinckley Jr., the man who shot former US President Ronald Reagan in 1981, was released on Saturday from a Washington psychiatric hospital, a media report said.

A worker at St. Elizabeth's Hospital told CNN he saw Hinckley leave the hospital grounds.

Before departing, Hinckley walked around and got into a car with some people wishing him good luck, the worker said.

In July, a federal judge decided to grant Hinckley, 61, "full-time convalescent leave" from St. Elizabeth's Hospital.

The order allows him to live full time with his mother in Williamsburg, Virginia, but still under certain restrictions, CNN reported.

"The very carefully considered decision by the court to release Hinckley based on the copious evidence by medical professionals and government expert witnesses should give great comfort to a concerned citizenry that the mental health system and the judicial system worked and worked well," Hinckley's lawyer Barry William Levine said in a statement.

Doctors said Hinckley had recovered from the mental illness that drove him to shoot Reagan and three others outside the Washington Hilton in March 1981.

--IANS

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