¶1Thomas W. Farquhar, Washington, D. C., for appellant.
¶2Leonie M. Brinkema, Asst. U. S. Atty., Alexandria, Va. (Justin W. Williams, U. S. Atty., Alexandria, Va., Henry E. Hudson, Commonwealth’s Atty., Arlington, Va., on brief), for appellees.
¶3Before WIDENER, HALL and PHILLIPS, Circuit Judges.
¶5Antonio Marinho Antunes appeals from the district court’s denial of his petition for a writ of habeas corpus. Having considered the record of the proceedings below, the briefs, and the oral arguments of counsel, we affirm.
¶6On May 14, 1967, the appellant and a companion, Dias, were involved in a street fight in Cite de la Cerisaie, France, which resulted in the death of a young man. The *4appellant and Ms companion fled from the scene of the homicide. Dias was apprehended in Luxembourg a year and a half later and tried for murder, but the case against him was ultimately dismissed. An-tunes also fled to Luxembourg and remained there for an unspecified period of time before moving to Brazil. From Brazil, in early 1969, he wrote a letter to the police commissioner in Saint-Denis, France stating that he had “caused a death” and that he did not intend to return to France. Shortly thereafter, an international warrant of arrest was issued for Antunes.
¶7In February of 1970, after futile attempts by the French government to locate him, the appellant was tried and convicted in absentia on charges of intentional murder. He was sentenced to life imprisonment.
¶8On February 28, 1980, acting upon information provided by the French government, the United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia filed a complaint seeking the extradition of the appellant to France.1 One day later Antunes was arrested in his home in Arlington, Virginia, and held without bond.2
¶9On March 28, 1980, following an extradition hearing conducted pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 3184, a certificate of extraditability was issued. Antunes was granted a stay of extradition pending a hearing on his habeas corpus petition.
¶10In his petition for habeas relief under 28 U.S.C. § 22553 the appellant contends that he was denied due process of law in the extradition hearing because he was ordered to be extradited despite his assertions that he was an American national and that the lapse of time barred his extradition. After a full hearing,4 the petition was denied.
¶11On appeal Antunes urges us to give full review to his defenses. He argues that review in habeas proceedings arising from extradition- hearings should approximate the review upon a writ of error since he has no right to a direct appeal. TMs argument was expressly rejected by the Supreme Court in Fernandez v. Phillips, 268 U.S. 311, 312, 45 S.Ct. 541, 542, 69 L.Ed. 970 (1925) wherein Justice Holmes stated: “[t]hat writ [habeas corpus] as has been said very often cannot take place of a writ of error. It is not a means for rehearing what the Magistrate already has decided.” See also, Escobedo v. United States, 623 F.2d 1098 (5th Cir. 1980).
¶12The extradition hearing itself was sufficient within 18 U.S.C. § 3184.5 In Peroff v. Hylton, 542 F.2d 1247, 1249 (4th Cir. 1978) we recognized the limited purpose of an extradition hearing:
The purpose is to inquire into the presence of probable cause to believe that *5there has been a violation of one or more of the laws of the extraditing country, that the alleged conduct, if committed in the United States, would have been a violation of our criminal law, and that the extradited individual is the one sought by the foreign nation for trial on the eharge of violation of its criminal laws.
¶13The record evidence from the proceedings below amply supports the district court’s finding of probable cause. Antunes himself challenges neither the finding of probable cause nor the conclusion that he is the individual sought by France.
¶14Accordingly, the judgment of the district court is affirmed.
¶15AFFIRMED.