In EWS, you can create a draft like this:
Setting the extended MessageFlags property did the trick! Has to be done at creation.
<tns:CreateItem MessageDisposition="SaveOnly">
<tns:Items>
<t:Message>
<t:ItemClass>IPM.Note</t:ItemClass>
<t:Subject>subject</t:Subject>
<t:Body BodyType="HTML">body</t:Body>
<t:IsRead>false</t:IsRead>
<t:ExtendedProperty>
<t:ExtendedFieldURI PropertyTag="3591" PropertyType="Integer" />
<t:Value>1</t:Value>
</t:ExtendedProperty>
</t:Message>
</tns:Items>
</tns:CreateItem>