MOSCOW, July 25 - RAPSI. The controversial legislation classifying as foreign agents those non-profit organizations receiving funds from foreign sources and engaged in politics may well be circumvented by sponsors from abroad, self-exiled oligarch Boris Berezovsky told Izvestia daily.

He said that all laws are created for "thinking individuals to find loopholes, so as to be able to work around the law, and keeping within the law at that". Berezovsky set up a scheme quite some time ago whereby non-profit organizations he sponsors can avoid being classed as foreign agents.

Berezovsky believes it is wrong to equate this law to U.S. acts. The United States does not view the workings of these organizations as espionage or activity harmful to the state. The purpose of the law is merely to regulate their work.

Berezovsky moved to the UK in 2000. In 2003, the UK courts refused to extradite him to Russia at the request of the Prosecutor General's office, while the British government granted him a refugee status.

A Russian court has convicted Berezovsky of fraud, the embezzlement of AvtoVAZ, LOGOVaz and Aeroflot company funds, and money laundering. Berezovsky has been sentenced in absentia to 13 and 6 years in prison.