Stalker played Run to the Hills song through victim's Sonos speaker

A cafe owner who stalked a terrified woman played Iron Maiden’s Run to the Hills through her Sonos speaker as he prowled outside her home.

Akram Arebi, 43, left his victim so traumatised she considered fleeing to England.

During a two-year campaign of terror, he also bombarded the victim with text messages, threatened to post intimate photos online and secretly tracked her to a restaurant.

Arebi – who has a previous firearms conviction – could now face a possible jail term after he pled guilty at Glasgow Sheriff Court on Tuesday to stalking the woman between April 2017 and September 2019.

The hearing was told how Arebi had got to know the victim through a business they were both involved in.

He ended up hounding the woman, becoming jealous when he saw her with another man.

Arebi also turned up at an airport knowing she would be there.

She eventually blocked his number after he repeatedly phoned and messaged her.

Arebi then appeared at the woman’s home in Glasgow’s Strathbungo in May 2017.

Prosecutor Stewart McLean said the cafe boss repeatedly rang her doorbell.

The fiscal added: “Her Sonos speaker started to play Run to the Hills by Iron Maiden.

“Arebi had access to this from before, so she unplugged the speaker from her room and crawled in the dark to the kitchen where she saw him from the kitchen window standing in the street smiling.”

Arebi, of the city’s Finnieston, went on to claim he could not live without the scared woman.

The court heard she was later out at the Hanoi Bike Shop restaurant in Glasgow’s west end when she got a text from Arebi.

It was a photo of the eatery with the tagline stating: “This is where you are now.”

She had not told the stalker she was going there.

He then sent a message moaning she had not told him where she was.

Arebi continued to be “controlling and manipulative”, which included making slurs against the woman on social media.

The traumatised victim sought legal help to keep Arebi away from her.

Mr McLean said: “She checked an old phone and there were then messages threatening to upload abusive videos of her onto a porn site.”

The woman went on to receive a call from a woman called “Bex”, who claimed Arebi had asked her to get in touch to state his own phone had been “hacked”.

Arebi also pled guilty to being threatening and abusive to another woman as well as a man he sold a laptop to in 2016.

The buyer had taken Arebi to court due to problems with the computer.

He then made abusive remarks about the man, including online.

Ryan Sloan, defending, told the court: “There is no excuse for this type of behaviour and he accepts that.

“He has enterprises and is known in the Finnieston area – he runs a cafe which is a hub for the community.

“He is a well-known and well-liked businessman.”

The lawyer stated Arebi’s previous convictions include a firearms offence in which he was found with an air rifle he claimed was for hunting rabbits.

Sheriff Jonathan Guy deferred sentencing for reports and Arebi had his bail continued.