Norway death toll rises to 77

A person who was wounded in last week's terrorist attacks in Norway has died, raising the death toll from the massacre to 77.

Henning Holtaas, a police lawyer, said today the unidentified victim died at a hospital of wounds he suffered during the shooting rampage on Utoya island.

Norwegian extremist Anders Behring Breivik has admitted conducting the shooting rampage on Utoya that has killed 69 people and setting off a bomb in central Oslo that killed eight.

The death toll increased as Norway began burying the dead, a week after the anti-Muslim extremist's attack.

An 18-year-old Muslim girl was the first victim to be laid to rest. After a funeral service in the Nesodden church outside Oslo, Bano Rashid - a Kurdish immigrant from Iraq - was buried in a Muslim rite.

The attack will "not destroy Norway's commitment to democracy, tolerance and fighting racism", Labour Party youth-wing leader Eskil Pedersen said at a memorial service in the capital.

Pedersen, who was on the island retreat of Utoya when the gunman's attack began, said: "Long before he stands before a court we can say: he has lost."

He said the youth organisation would return to Utoya next year for its annual summer gathering, a tradition that stretches back decades.

Police said all those killed in the July 22 terror attacks in Oslo and on Utoya have now been identified and those reported missing have been accounted for.

Norway's Police Security Service said the threat from right-wing extremists remains unchanged after Breivik's attack.

It said the 32-year-old's actions lack parallels in Europe or elsewhere, his views differ from the ideology of most racist and neo-Nazi groups, and very few people in Norway are capable of replicating what he did.

At today's memorial service in Oslo at the assembly hall of the 'People's House', a community centre for Norway's labour movement, Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg said: "Today it is one week since Norway was hit by evil."

The bullets struck dozens of members of the youth faction of his Labour Party, but they were aimed at the entire nation, Stoltenberg said, on a stage adorned with red roses, the symbol of his party.

"I think July 22 will be a very strong symbol of the Norwegian people's wish to be united in our fight against violence, and will be a symbol of how the nation can answer with love," he told reporters.

Members of the audience raised bouquets of flowers as each speaker took the stage, and some of them fought back tears as they spoke.

Later, Stoltenberg spoke at a Muslim memorial service in Gronland, an immigrant neighbourhood in Oslo. The prime minister called for unity across ethnic and religious lines, a message he has repeated many times since the attacks.

Breivik was questioned by police today for the second time since surrendering to an anti-terror squad on Utoya, where his victims lay strewn across the shore and in the water.

In a 1,500-page manifesto released just before the attacks, Breivik ranted about Europe being overrun by Muslim immigrants and blamed left-wing political forces for making the continent multicultural.

Police lawyer Paal-Fredrik Hjort Kraby said Breivik remained calm and co-operative during the questioning, during which investigators reviewed his statements from a session on Saturday.

Investigators believe Breivik acted alone, after years of meticulous planning, and have not found anything to support his claims that he is part of a network plotting attacks across Europe.

Breivik has confessed to both attacks but denies criminal guilt because he believes he is in a state of war, his lawyer and police have said.

Police have charged Breivik with terrorism, which carries a maximum sentence of 21 years in prison. But the charge could change to crimes against humanity, which carries a 30-year prison term, Norway's top prosecutor Tor-Aksel Busch said.

"Such charges will be considered when the entire police investigation has been finalised," he said. "It is an extensive investigation. We will charge Breivik for each individual killing."

Prosecutors can also seek a special sentence that would enable the court to keep Breivik in prison indefinitely. A formal indictment is not expected until next year, Busch said.