Criminal Charges Against Former Cricket Canada CEO Salman Khan Dropped
Criminal charges against former Cricket Canada chief executive Salman Khan Shahzad collapsed on Monday, ending a years-long legal cloud over one of the sport’s most controversial recent figures in this country.
Khan, 47, also known as Salman Khan, had faced one count each of fraud over $5,000 and theft over $5,000, tied to allegations he misappropriated $200,000 from the Calgary and District Cricket League between 2014 and 2016.
Those charges were supposed to be tested in court this week. Day 1 of his trial never began.
Instead, prosecutor Petter Hurich rose in a Calgary courtroom on Monday morning and withdrew the case, bringing the criminal proceedings to an abrupt halt.
Crown pulls the plug
In a statement to CBC News, the Crown Prosecution Service said its lawyers are required to continually reassess cases as they move toward trial, measuring the evidence against the standard needed for prosecution.
In this file, the Crown concluded there simply was not enough.
The prosecutor determined there was “insufficient evidence to proceed to trial,” the statement said. No testimony, no cross-examination, no verdict.
For Khan’s camp, it was the outcome they had pushed toward for nearly a year.
Defence lawyer Jim Lutz said his client was “greatly relieved” by the decision, calling it “the right result in law for Khan.”
Lutz described a painstaking review of the case material, saying the defence had spent almost a year “critically evaluating the evidence” before the Crown ultimately stepped back. Khan, he said, is “extremely grateful” prosecutors took the time to go through the file in detail.
Khan was not the only figure originally in the dock. Former Calgary and District Cricket League treasurer Syed Wajahat Ali had faced the same charges. Ali says his case was withdrawn earlier this year, removing both men from the criminal court roster.
From CEO’s office to termination notice
The courtroom twist comes against the backdrop of Khan’s dramatic fall from one of the most powerful positions in Canadian cricket.
Cricket Canada terminated Khan in December 2025, nine months after Calgary police publicly announced the fraud and theft charges. The dismissal followed a board-led investigation.
In a statement on its website at the time, the governing body said Khan was fired not for a conviction, but for failing to disclose prior criminal charges — something the board called “a serious breach of trust” — as well as violations of organizational bylaws tied to his contract.
That contract now sits at the heart of a separate and costly dispute.
According to reporting by CBC’s the fifth estate, Khan’s employment deal with Cricket Canada contains a key protection: he is entitled to his full term pay if he is fired 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, that clause takes on enormous weight.
Khan is reportedly fighting for Cricket Canada to honour the agreement and pay out the remaining $475,000. CBC News has asked the organization to comment on his demand; no response has yet been reported.
How the investigation began
The criminal case grew out of a financial review of the grassroots game in Calgary.
In 2017, the newly appointed president of the Calgary and District Cricket League ordered an audit of the league’s books. Concerns flagged in that audit led the league to police.
Calgary police later announced, in 2024, that they had charged Khan and Ali after a lengthy investigation. At that time, investigators alleged the pair misappropriated league funds through cheque payments to construction businesses and contractors tied to the former president and treasurer.
Police said those payments were ostensibly for repairs and upgrades to the league’s clubhouse and grounds. The allegation was stark: work that was either never done at all, or completed poorly with inferior materials, while money flowed out of the league’s accounts.
None of those allegations were ever tested in court. With the Crown’s withdrawal on Monday, they now recede into the background of a case that will not be decided by a judge or jury.
Match-fixing shadows
Khan’s name has surfaced in another, very different controversy around Canadian cricket.
He was identified in a the fifth estate investigation into allegations that the Bishnoi gang — an organization said to be run from an Indian prison by Lawrence Bishnoi — has influence over Cricket Canada.
The investigative program reported on threats, corruption and intimidation, including a letter from the Bishnoi gang to police declaring, “We will rule in CANADA.”
The fifth estate obtained audio from a former Cricket Canada head coach, who claimed he had been asked to fix parts of matches by then-CEO Khan and two other former leaders within the organization.
Khan, in a lengthy email to CBC News, flatly rejected that accusation. He said he categorically denies “any involvement in spot fixing, session fixing, betting or influencing team selection for improper purposes.”
No criminal charges have been laid in relation to those match-fixing allegations, and Khan’s denial stands as his formal response.
Legal battle shifts to the boardroom
With the fraud and theft case now erased from the court calendar, the next chapter in Khan’s saga is likely to unfold not in a criminal courtroom, but across negotiating tables and, potentially, in civil proceedings.
A terminated CEO, a fired board, a governing body under scrutiny, and a contract reportedly worth nearly half a million dollars still in dispute.
The criminal file is closed. The questions around Cricket Canada’s leadership, finances and integrity are not.
