The couple are currently being held in the Northern Immigration Detention Centre, in Darwin, for entering the country illegally on 9 November.
The two had been sentenced in Dili in August to eight years in prison and told to pay $859,000 compensation for fraudulent use of public money. They appealed against the sentence.
They are now being asked to be extradited to Portugal for the illegal entry into Australia and their lawyer said it has “nothing to do with the crime” they were charged with in East Timor.
Their lawyer recalled that there is an extradition treaty between Portugal and Australia (that the Portuguese parliament ratified in 1988) but that there was no such treaty between East Timor and Australia.