Saudi Arabia said on Wednesday it had taken measures to limit the power of controversial religious police who hardline clerics say make society more moral but many accuse of interfering in people's lives. Interior Minister Prince Nayef decreed that public prosecutors would deal with all cases concerning "harassment", stopping the ultraconservative kingdom's unique morality squad from detaining suspects for hours, the state media said. "The role of the 'authority for the promotion of virtue and prevention of vice' ends with apprehending suspected individuals and handing them to the police, who then present them to prosecutors with a report of the incident involved," it said.The religious police have wide powers in Saudi Arabia to prevent the spread of drugs, alcohol and prostitution as well as unrelated men and women mixing in public. But a number of cases in recent years have drawn attention to overzealous behaviour that provoked rare public criticism in newspapers of the organisation, which hardline clerics say is a central element of their Islamic state.