As I recall, the last time I had this problem (on a desktop machine), I wasn't able to "rm" the files, but I could still "mv" them (or their parent directory) elsewhere -- i.e., "mv .opera stalefiles" or something like that. This at least gets the dead links out of the way.

I think the only way to delete them is as others have pointed out, mount the partition in a different way (such as using the "mass storage mode" when connecting via usb), and deleting them from there...