Criminal Charges Against Salman Khan Shahzad Withdrawn in Calgary

Criminal charges against former Cricket Canada chief executive Salman Khan Shahzad collapsed in a Calgary courtroom on Monday, ending a long-running fraud case that had hovered over both the man and the sport’s national body.

Shahzad, also known as Salman Khan, had been accused of misappropriating $200,000 from the Calgary and District Cricket League. The 47-year-old faced one count each of fraud over $5,000 and theft over $5,000, laid in March 2025 and tied to alleged offences between 2014 and 2016.

The trial was supposed to start Monday morning. It never did.

Instead, prosecutor Petter Hurich stood up in court and withdrew the charges, bringing the criminal proceedings to an abrupt halt.

In a statement to CBC News, the Crown Prosecution Service said its lawyers carry “an ongoing obligation to review all available admissible evidence to ensure the matter continues to meet the standard for prosecution.” In this case, the Crown concluded there was “insufficient evidence to proceed to trial.”

For Shahzad, the decision closed a chapter that had dragged on for years.

Defence lawyer Jim Lutz said his client was “greatly relieved” by the outcome.

“This was the right result in law for Khan,” Lutz said, noting the defence had spent nearly a year dissecting the file. “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.”

Shahzad was not alone when the allegations first surfaced. Former Calgary and District Cricket League treasurer Syed Wajahat Ali faced the same charges. Ali says his case was dropped earlier this year.

Cricket Canada fallout

The criminal case had already cost Shahzad his job at the top of the sport in this country.

Cricket Canada fired him in December 2025, nine months after Calgary police publicly announced the charges following a board-led investigation. The governing body said at the time that the decision was not just about the allegations themselves, but about what Shahzad failed to disclose.

“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 on its website.

That dismissal has opened another front.

According to reporting by CBC’s the fifth estate, Shahzad’s contract as Cricket Canada CEO included a powerful protection: he would be entitled to his full term pay if he was fired for any reason other than a criminal conviction related to his role as chief executive.

There is no conviction. The charges have now been withdrawn.

Shahzad is reportedly pressing Cricket Canada to honour that clause and pay out the remaining $475,000. CBC News has requested comment from the organization as the contractual battle looms over a sport already wrestling with questions of governance and integrity.

How the case began

The criminal investigation did not start in a courtroom or a police station. It began in an audit.

In 2017, the newly appointed president of the Calgary and District Cricket League ordered a review of the league’s books. That audit raised red flags, prompting a referral to Calgary police.

When officers laid charges last year, investigators alleged Shahzad and Ali had misdirected league funds through cheque payments to construction companies and contractors tied to the then-president and treasurer.

Police said the money was ostensibly for repairs and upgrades to the league’s clubhouse and grounds. According to investigators, some of that work was never done. Other parts, they alleged, were carried out poorly with inferior materials.

Those allegations never reached the test of trial. The evidentiary threshold, the Crown decided, was not high enough to move forward.

Match-fixing claims still linger

Even with the criminal case closed, Shahzad’s name remains entangled in another, darker storyline around Canadian cricket.

He was identified in a fifth estate investigation into claims that the Bishnoi gang — allegedly directed from an Indian prison by leader Lawrence Bishnoi — has influence over Cricket Canada. The program detailed a climate of threats, corruption and intimidation around the sport’s administration.

As part of that reporting, the fifth estate obtained audio from a former Cricket Canada head coach. In that recording, the coach claimed he had been asked to fix parts of matches by then-CEO Shahzad and two other former senior figures within the organization.

Shahzad has rejected those accusations in forceful terms. In a lengthy email to CBC News, he said he “categorically” denies “any involvement in spot fixing, session fixing, betting or influencing team selection for improper purposes.”

So the ledger looks like this: fraud and theft charges withdrawn for lack of evidence, employment terminated over nondisclosure and bylaw breaches, a looming fight over nearly half a million dollars in contract pay, and unresolved match-fixing allegations that continue to cast a shadow.

For Cricket Canada, the legal case may be over. The questions about trust, governance and who really holds power in the sport here are not.