PAKISTAN president Pervez Musharraf gave protesters and the Press the slip today as he spoke at the Oxford Union.

The president, speaking on Pakistan in the 21st century, was due to be greeted by supporters of a man facing execution.

Mirza Tahir Hussain, who holds a joint UK-Pakistani passport, is due to be executed at dawn on Sunday unless he receives a last minute reprieve.

But as the official cavalcade drew up outside the Union president Musharraf was nowhere to be seen.

Scores of police, some armed, sealed off St Michael's Street but the president had crept in the back entrance.

Mr Hussain was convicted of murdering a taxi driver in 1989 but his supporters - many of whom waited for hours outside the Union in pouring rain today - claimed he was denied a fair trial.

Mr Hussain's brother Amjad said: "The Pakistani authorities have been hiding behind the notion they are negotiating - he has been in prison for 17 years following a very unfair trial."