Three men who murdered a club doorman as gang warfare erupted have been jailed for life.

Vionest Dema, Flamur Toppali and Ermir Dema stabbed Altin Molita, 23, to death in his car after a chase across Brighton.

Horrified witnesses watched as the victim was stabbed so violently his blood splashed on the windows.

Mr Molita managed to scream for help but bled to death from more than 20 knife wounds, including one to the heart.

Mr Justice Bell passed sentence on the killers - all Kosovan Albanians and illegal immigrants - at the Old Bailey yesterday.

He said: "This was a premeditated and planned killing.

"You ambushed Altin Molita and chased him in his car. This was an attack in a busy thoroughfare in Hove with a significant number of ordinary people about.

"They were greatly distressed by what they observed."

Mr Molita and his associates had been involved in a long feud with the gang.

His killers waited for him to finish work as a doorman at the Pussycats lap dance club in Church Road, Hove, on May 1 last year.

The gang ambushed him in his Vauxhall Astra at the junction of Church Road and Connaught Road, Hove at 1.15am.

Vionest Dema stabbed Mr Molita in the leg, severing a major artery, before being forced out of the car.

The gang also smashed the windows but Mr Molita managed to drive away.

Two cars sped after him and he was blocked in at Palmeira Square.

Mr Molita was then repeatedly stabbed by the gang as he scrambled into the back seat to escape the blows.

Prosecutor Michael Birnbaum, QC, said: "He was trapped in his own car and was seen trying to shunt the vehicle backwards and forwards.

"It was a swift, determined and very violent attack with possibly two knives.

"He died within moments of the assault of more than 20 wounds to the body, three life threatening."

Vionest Dema, 32, of Queen's Road, Brighton, pleaded guilty to murder before the trial of his relatives.

Mr Justice Bell said he would serve at least 17 and a half years in prison before being considered for parole.

Flamur Toppali, 32, of Burstead Close, Brighton, and Ermir Dema, 28, of Sillwood Street, Brighton, were convicted of murder by a jury at Lewes Crown Court.

Endrit Llazari, 21, of Circus Parade, Brighton, and Mevlan Dema, 19, were both cleared.

The three Demas tried to flee the country by hiding in the back of a lorry but were caught in Dover a week later.

They claimed the victim had been causing trouble for their family and had attacked Vionest Dema with an iron bar a few weeks earlier.

Mr Molita was born in the 2,000-year-old fortified town of Berat in Albania and arrived in the UK in 1998.

He changed his identity in December 2004 after his first application for asylum was refused.