Criminal Charges Against Former Cricket Canada CEO Withdrawn

Criminal charges against former Cricket Canada CEO Salman Khan Shahzad have been withdrawn, closing one of the most contentious chapters in the sport’s recent Canadian history — but leaving major questions hanging over the national body.

Shahzad, also known as Salman Khan, had faced allegations of misappropriating $200,000 from the Calgary and District Cricket League, with counts of fraud over $5,000 and theft over $5,000 laid in March 2025. The alleged offences dated back to a two-year period between 2014 and 2016.

On Monday morning in a Calgary courtroom, what was supposed to be Day 1 of his trial never began. Prosecutor Petter Hurich rose and withdrew the charges.

Just like that, the case was over.

In a statement to CBC News, the Crown Prosecution Service said its lawyers are required to continually reassess cases as evidence evolves, and that this file no longer met the threshold to proceed.

“The Crown prosecutor determined there was insufficient evidence to proceed to trial,” the statement read.

For Shahzad’s camp, it marked the end of a long, grinding legal ordeal. Defence lawyer Jim Lutz said his client was “greatly relieved” and called the outcome “the right result in law for Khan.”

Lutz described nearly a year of combing through material and challenging the case against the former executive.

“We came to this conclusion after almost a year’s worth of work on this file, critically evaluating the evidence. My client is extremely grateful the Crown took the time to thoroughly review this file,” he said.

The decision follows a similar outcome for Syed Wajahat Ali, the Calgary and District Cricket League’s former treasurer, who had been charged with the same offences. Ali has said his charges were withdrawn earlier this year.

Yet the legal victory for Shahzad sits against the backdrop of a fractured relationship with Cricket Canada itself.

The national federation terminated him in December 2025, nine months after Calgary police first announced the charges. That move came on the heels of a board-led investigation and was framed not around the alleged misappropriation of funds, but around trust and transparency.

“The dismissal stems from Mr. Khan’s failure to disclose prior criminal charges — an act that constituted a serious breach of trust — along with violations of organizational bylaws related to his contract,” the board said in a statement posted on its website at the time.

That contract now looms large.

According to reporting by CBC’s the fifth estate, Shahzad’s deal with Cricket Canada included a provision guaranteeing him full term pay if he was dismissed for any reason other than a criminal conviction related to his role as CEO. With the criminal case now gone and no conviction on his record from these charges, Shahzad is reportedly pushing for the federation to honour the agreement and pay out the remaining $475,000.

Cricket Canada has not publicly responded to that demand. CBC News has reached out to the organization for comment.

The criminal investigation that triggered this chain of events began in the wake of a 2017 audit of the Calgary and District Cricket League’s financial records. The newly installed league president flagged concerns, and Calgary police opened a probe.

When charges were laid last year, investigators alleged Shahzad and Ali had misappropriated league funds through cheque payments to construction businesses and contractors connected to the then-president and treasurer. Police said the money was supposed to pay for repairs and upgrades to the league’s clubhouse and grounds.

According to investigators, work was either never completed or done poorly with inferior materials.

Those allegations will now never be tested in court.

Yet the storm around Shahzad has never been confined to finances. His name surfaced again in a separate, explosive investigation by the fifth estate into claims that the Bishnoi gang — run from an Indian prison by Lawrence Bishnoi — has influence over Cricket Canada.

The program reported on threats, corruption and intimidation, and revealed a letter from the Bishnoi gang to police declaring, “We will rule in CANADA.” It also obtained audio from a former Cricket Canada head coach, who claimed he had been asked to fix parts of matches by Shahzad, then CEO, and two other former leaders inside the organization.

Match manipulation, betting, team selection for improper purposes — the allegations cut to the core of cricket’s integrity.

Shahzad, in a lengthy email to CBC News, has categorically denied “any involvement in spot fixing, session fixing, betting or influencing team selection for improper purposes.”

Those claims have not led to criminal charges, but they have deepened the sense of unease around the governance of the sport in Canada and the forces that may be tugging at it from the shadows.

With the fraud and theft case now closed, Shahzad walks away from the courtroom without a trial, yet still in the middle of a battle — this time over money, reputation and his unfinished contract. For Cricket Canada, the legal chapter may be over, but the reckoning over how it was run, who held sway, and what comes next for the sport in this country is only just beginning.